Testing your web applications is vital to uncover defects and identify the scope of improvements for speed, stability, and scalability. Be it functional testing or non-functional testing, you need to implement the “Test early, test often” strategy to ensure that your web application behaves as expected under all scenarios and produces correct output for all inputs.

Functional testing, also known as Black Box testing, compares the actual output against expected output based on the inputs. Testers have no access to the code and use predefined specifications, usually in the form of input and expected output table. Functional testing can be performed both Manually or automated based on the code, module, and behavior under testing. Manual testing can consume more time and prone to human error; automation testing makes use of reusable test cases and more accurate.

Best Functional Testing Tools

There are many functional testing tools available in the market, both open-source and paid. Still, the technology stack for web applications is evolving faster than ever and choosing the right tool has become a bit tricky. Let’s look at some of the best functional testing tools to help you make informed decisions about which tool to use.

Selenium

Selenium is a widely used functional testing tool for browser-based web applications. You can write your test scripts in various programming languages, including Java, PHP, Ruby, Python, C#, and more. It is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and supports all major modern browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, IE, etc. It has record and playback functionality to automate scripting with minimal programming knowledge. 

UFT

Unified Functional Testing is a tool from a well-known brand HP to perform regression testing and functional testing. With UFT, you can write your scripts using Visual Basic language with an in-built error-handling mechanism. UFT is useful when you want to test your objects, checkpoints, and tables with different parameters to check the correctness of outputs.

IBM Rational Functional Tester

IBM RFT supports several web applications written in Java, .NET, AJAX, SAP, Flex, etc. You can write your test scripts in Java, .NET, and Visual Basic. It is a data-driven platform with a storyboard feature to record and visualize user actions to make functional and regression testing easy. It can be easily integrated with other IBM tools such as IBM Jaaz, IBM Rational Quality Manager, etc.

TestComplete

TestComplete is a functional testing platform that automates your tests for web applications that runs on browsers, desktops, and mobiles. You can write your tests in a variety of languages such as JavaScripts, C++, C#, Python, Delphi, and more. It has a very good GUI, Record & Playback feature, and a test visualizer to make testers’ life easy.

Sahi

Sahi is also a widely used functional testing tool and is considered the best alternative to Selenium. You can easily test your web applications on multiple browsers with dynamic content. It has powerful features to test REST APIs and complex AJAX calls for modern web applications. You can also integrate it into your CI/CD pipeline for continuous testing. 

Watir 

You can test any web-application written in any programming language using Watir. It is written in Ruby and has cross-browser functional testing capabilities. You can easily create and execute test scripts for any web application component such as links, forms, buttons, navigation, etc.

Tricentis Tosca

Tricentis Tosca is widely used in DevOps practices with CI/CD pipeline integration for model-based testing automation. It has multiple features to support agile methodology, risk management, and integration management for web applications, mobile applications, and APIs. You can easily plan and design your test cases and analyze the results using its analytics dashboards.

Why Stop at Functional Testing?

Performance testing is equally important as functional testing. Knowing your website’s speed, stability, and scalability with an increasing number of users or during peak traffic conditions can help you solve performance challenges and improve customer experience.  For instance, you want to run a Black Friday sale for your e-commerce store. Suppose your marketing campaign does well, and massive traffic comes to your website on the offer date. In that case, your website server can experience a considerable load causing it to go down, and your website will become inaccessible to visitors. You will suffer a huge loss of revenue and customer trust.

Therefore, you need to perform load testing for your web applications to ensure that it loads fast and can serve the expected amount of traffic.

LoadView – Best Solution for Load Testing

LoadView is a fully managed SaaS solution for load testing your web applications, websites, APIs, and streaming platforms. That means you don’t have to worry about the upfront cost of hardware and software for your testing infrastructure and have the freedom to pay as you use. Let’s look at some strong features of LoadView that makes it suitable for testing applications of all sizes – 

• You can generate any desired amount of user load based on your requirements.
• LoadView supports 40+ real devices and browsers for simulating users to give you the most realistic testing conditions.
• You can test your web applications from multiple geo-locations to further increase performance accuracy.
• Even if you don’t have any programming experience, you can use its EveryStep Web Recorder to automate scripting and test complex user paths.
• You can adjust user load in real-time to do a thorough analysis of web applications’ performance and prepare a scalability plan.
• LoadView generates detailed and insightful reports to help you easily identify performance bottlenecks and eliminate them before they impact your business.

ConclusionFunctional testing is a first step towards delivering a quality web application with a consistent user experience. Identifying bugs and defects at early stages in the software development life cycle is essential to eliminate maintenance and testing costs in the long run. There are many tools available to do comprehensive functional testing of your web applications based on your unique requirements and resources. Load testing is critical to ensure your web application delivers a good experience even in high traffic situations. LoadView is a great tool for performing in-depth load testing and optimizing your website to always deliver the desired user experience.