TOP 11 TOOLS FOR VISUAL REGRESSION TESTING

We all know that Automation has partially replaced manual testing in today’s world. There are quite a lot of tools that automates functional and behavioral testing of an application. But, there are no tools developed yet that can automate the testing of how an application looks like. However, tools are there that can ease the process of visual regression testing through image comparison and other procedures.

Let’s look at 11 such tools that are available for free download at GitHub.

Phantom CSS – The main reasons behind the popularity of this widely used visual regression testing tool are

• It’s open source
• There is an active community for support at GitHub

The tool works with the combined effort of 3 components

• Phantom JS, a version of WebKit without any header content.
• Casper JS, a scripting and testing utility based on JavaScript.
• Resemble JS, a library based on HTML5 and JavaScript that automates image comparison.

The tool makes capturing regression bugs easier for testers by automating image comparison between expected and existing screenshots of the entire application or sections of the application.

RspecPageRegression – For visual regression testing of a web application this tool is one of the best. It considers HTML, CSS as well as JavaScript and captures a screenshot of the current page. After that, it executes image comparison between an expected image of the page with the existing image. It also uses PhantomJS to detect regression bugs.

Vizregress– Another visual regression testing tool that is meant to spot regression bugs in your webpage by comparison of approved images and existing screenshots. The development of this tool is done using.Net and image comparison and capturing along with test execution are done using SpecFlow.

LambdaTest– One of the leading Cloud-based platforms expertizing in Cross-browser compatibility testing, Lambdatest also provides services like visual regression testing with an inbuilt image comparison tool. All the user needs to do is, upload the baseline and comparison images and run the test. All the visual regression bugs can be very easily figured out using LambdaTest visual regression testing.

Spectre – Spectre is a popular Visual regression testing tool that is based on PhantomJS. It works on both Windows as well as Mac. Although in Mac, there are some prerequisites like Postgres and Ruby. The tool is based on Node JS and it makes image comparison of dynamic HTML pages easier with a few lines of code. However, there is only one drawback. The tool works only on pages that are developed using JavaScript.

Backstop js – if your aim is to execute image comparison of your responsive webpage, this tool is the ideal choice. The entire process of visual regression testing is automated by timely capturing DOM screenshots and comparing them over time. The tool is rated 1919 stars in GitHub because of its way of automating the detection of regression bugs.

Wraith – Originally developed by BBC news, this tool was aimed at comparing URLs of responsive sites. Later, it was enhanced by Selenium. The newer version uses Phantom JS to detect regression bugs. The tool captures the screenshot of the webpage in different environments and does visual regression testing by automatically comparing the images and highlighting the areas that have been impacted.

VIFF– VIFF is the perfect tool if you are looking for an automated solution for detection regression bugs between the different web pages that are rendered in the web browser. Apart from functioning in multiple environments like Dev, Production as well as UAT, this visual regression testing tool have become immensely popular for its capability of visual image comparison, both full page as well as partial in browsers.

Selenium Visual Diff– Visual problems in web pages are quite common when it comes to cross-browser testing. A text box that is positioned properly in Chrome, may have a different placement or alignment issues in Safari or IE. Selenium Visual Diff offers a solution by automated image comparison to find out regression bugs. Although the tester may need to write a few lines of code, the effort is worth and saves a lot of time spent on manual scrutiny.

Casper JS– This visual regression testing suite enables you to run a complete test of your website without worrying about any extra overhead from the browser. Not only image comparison, but the tool also enables you to output the test results in xunit, that ensures code health in the long run.

Visual Review – While testing the front end of an application, manual intervention is often required. Visual Review provides a solution by offering a productive workflow for detecting regression bugs in the layout of your website. It executes image comparison by considering the previously viewed screenshots as well as the current one. If a captured image is rejected, that means some visual differences are found from the old one, which are regression issues that need to be fixed.

GitProtect – It has not only the most important features of a good backup but also a transparent UI for monitoring the state of our data, anytime-anywhere access, and useful audit logs and notifications.

Apart from the tools mentioned in the list above, there are many others that have made visual regression testing easier. This testing technology comes in a variety of flavors and workflows. Find a tool that suits your purpose and make your website free from regression bugs. Happy hunting.