Real Apple devices are a new feature that BrowserStack has introduced. At the moment (August 2015) there are unreliable. Excerpt from an email reply from BrowserStack support:
we provide real iOS devices (Beta) and iOS simulators for Selenium browser testing on Automate. Since these devices are in beta, you might encounter a few problems while running tests on them.
To avoid this issue, we would suggest you try running your tests on iOS simulators.
Developers are advised to use the contact form. The JavaScript API is free for open source projects. Unclear whether automated testing with Selenium is also free - apparently not?
It's not very clear if real iOS devices are available for automated testing.
On one hand, https://www.browserstack.com/mobile-browser-emulator is all about emulators for both Android and iOS.
On the other, https://www.browserstack.com/automate says
"Test across real iOS devices and Android mobile emulators"
Then again, https://www.browserstack.com/list-of-browsers-and-platforms?product=automate lists "real iOS devices".
All iOS devices are physical and arranged in portrait mode. Emulators/simulators and Android devices can change their orientation via a button or keyboard combination.
The Selenium WebDriver script examples, by default, don't explain what to put in browser_api_name and os_api_name. This leads to an UnknownError: Invalid browser_api_name / os_api_name combination specified error, if you just copy and paste the script.
Instead, first select an OS and browser combination, and the script wizard will fill in the '?'s for you.
CBT uses real, physical devices for live (manual tests). Check the pictures on their blog post.
Automated tests use real Android devices (Nexus, Galaxy) and iPad and iPhone simulators.
Endtest allows you to create automated tests for web applications, directly on their cloud infrastructure. No coding skills are required.
You can also choose the action "Execute Javascript" for a more flexible test run.
It has an API which allows testers to run it on Jenkins or Team City. Other than that, it has a built-in test scheduler to allow testers to preset test executions.
You can export your automated tests in a variety of different formats, and run them on your own infrastructure. The formats are either in Python file format or executable file format (.EXE).
As of March 2018, Endtest can now support multiple platforms (Windows, MAC, Android and iOS), Operating Systems, and more than a handful of devices for both Android and iOS.
Their pricing plan ($79/month or $650/year) includes team plan upgrade, which means the whole team, regardless of the number of users, will only need to subscribe to the $79/month or $650/year plan. This includes unlimited test runs, test exports, recordings, etc.
If you are using the free plan, keep in mind that the test suites created there are scheduled to be deleted after around 2 weeks. Endtest will send you a notification email the day before mentioning "Test suites from users who are not on the PRO Plan get automatically deleted after some time," and offering for you to upgrade to PRO.
The free plan covers a lot, you can have up to 3 test suites, and you can run your automated tests as many times as you want. The pro plan includes some very advanced options that you might need only if you're working with a team (for example, the collaboration feature, schedule test run, API for Jenkins, etc.).
Sauce Labs developed Appium, an open source framework for automating the testing of mobile apps. While Appium supports real devices as well as emulators, the cloud offer from SauceLabs only offers simulators and emulators.
Litmus lets you interact live (in a VM) with email clients, but not with browsers. The focus of the platform is making sure that emails look right. The URL path of the features page is email-testing.
198 browser combinations, while other services claim 500 or 700. For example, the latest Firefox TestingBot offers is 37, while 39 has been out for a while.
Unlike SauceLabs, Browserstack or CrossBrowserTesting, Browsershots only offers screenshots. Other solutions let you interact with the browser via a virtual machine, or automate testing using Selenium.