Due to performance issues across various networks and under diverse loads, you might have noticed frequent crashes in your program, or users uninstalling it shortly after the initial download. Therefore, it is essential to test your mobile app’s functionality under challenging conditions to ensure its reliability.
In reality, testing mobile apps is more complex and time-consuming than testing PC software. The vast array of devices, heightened user mobility, and device-specific features can make the process daunting. This post will highlight the significance of performance testing for mobile apps and share some important mobile app performance testing tools.
Creating A Mobile App Performance Testing Plan
Having a well-thought-out plan is essential when testing the functionality of your mobile app. It aids you in selecting the checks to include in a particular list created to meet the requirements of your application.
Mobile app performance testing tools are crucial in the mobile app development process as they assist developers in detecting and rectifying potential issues, bugs, and performance bottlenecks before the application is deployed to the end user. Moreover, these tools automate and simplify the testing process, preserving valuable time and resources while ensuring the app functions optimally across a variety of devices, operating systems, and network conditions.
Aligning Test Objectives With Business Requirements
Make sure your success criteria match the essential business functionalities of your app before you begin the testing process. For instance, give testing elements like the shopping cart, registration, and contact forms top priority if your app is an e-commerce site geared toward lead generation.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Identification
Establish testing benchmarks to assess the execution’s success. Consider crucial KPIs for testing mobile apps, including error rates, response times, the number of requests, throughput, and the number of concurrent active users by device and OS.
Prioritising Scenarios
Prioritise critical situations to ensure the steady performance of your software rather than testing every feature simultaneously. Before going on to less crucial ones, start with fundamental ones like login, cart usage, and order payments.
Simulating Real-Life Testing Environment
Ensure that your testing environment closely mirrors the production environment for dependable results. Although emulators can be useful, certain features, especially those involving cameras, GPS, or device-specific functionalities, may require testing on actual hardware.
Testing Approach And Development Methodology Alignment
Whether your firm uses Agile or Waterfall development approaches, incorporate testing into the process. This alignment streamlines the development team’s decision-making.
Considering Network Latency And Bandwidth
Since mobile devices rely on networks from independent carriers, consider network latency and bandwidth fluctuations during testing. Determine whether network or server delays are to blame because each solution is different.
Due to the wide range of devices, user mobility, and device-specific capabilities, testing mobile apps can be difficult. Performance testing can help identify and resolve problems with your software if it frequently crashes or has a high uninstall rate.
Also Read: Product Testing: Best Practices And Tips For Success
Setting Up the Environment for Mobile Application Performance Testing
A mobile app’s performance and impact on the end-user experience must be tested. Consider it a lab where you can test out various components to see how they affect the app’s performance. You need to set up the environment correctly.
- Isolate the Environment: You want to thoroughly understand the app’s behaviour under various circumstances during testing. Multiple teams doing parallel tests in the same environment can interfere with each other and skew the results. So, to retain the accuracy and precision of your tests, it is crucial to separate the testing environment.
- Utilise Test Data Generators: Data operations such as writing, reading, and deleting can significantly influence the performance of the app. Instead of sensitive production data, consider using data-generating tools like Datprof or EMS Data Generator. These tools allow you to simulate real-world data, providing accurate performance insights without risking confidential information.
- Think About Isolating the Network: In some situations, sustaining numerous concurrent activities on the same network may not be viable without performance issues. Although it’s not always required, it’s strongly advised to isolate the network for testing since it helps to provide better testing circumstances and more accurate findings.
- Remove Proxy Servers: Placing a proxy server between the client and the web server might degrade app performance. To prevent this issue, running tests in a remote location with no intermediary proxies is recommended.
You can conduct efficient and reliable performance tests, acquire insightful knowledge of your app’s behaviour, and enhance the end-user experience by heeding these suggestions and strategically setting up your mobile app testing environment.
Choosing the Best Mobile App Performance Testing Tools
There are two basic methods that testers use to evaluate how well mobile apps operate. Let’s simplify it for you.
Examining the app’s server-side performance is the main focus of the first method. The development team reviews the server logic in this approach and ensures everything is operating as intended. They want to ensure the app can process all requests and data without any hiccups.
The second approach involves evaluating the app’s functionality on a device directly. This means that the tester will use either a real mobile device or an emulated one to assess how the application operates from a user’s perspective. They are given the freedom to interact with the app exactly as an end user would, which facilitates the identification of any issues or bottlenecks that could compromise the overall user experience.
Now, let’s look at some of the best mobile application testing tools you should consider. But first, let’s try to comprehend what these mobile application testing tools are and how they are selected.
Also Read: Product Testing: Best Practices And Tips For Success
What Are Mobile App Performance Testing Tools?
Mobile app performance testing tools are designed primarily to support developers and testers in evaluating mobile apps across various devices, operating systems, and network conditions. These tools offer a broad spectrum of testing capabilities, including functional testing, performance testing, compatibility testing, and security testing.
These mobile app performance testing tools are exceptional as they automate the testing process, allowing testers to save substantial time and effort. Consequently, they can promptly identify any problems or deficiencies that could impact how end users interact with the application.
Furthermore, these technologies foster enhanced collaboration and communication, leading to precise, reliable, and comprehensive test results. Ultimately, mobile application testing tools are crucial in ensuring that apps are of the highest quality, meet customer expectations, and deliver a satisfying user experience.
How To Select The Best Mobile App Performance Testing Tools
Let’s discuss how to select the best tools for testing mobile applications. Primarily, tools with high customer satisfaction ratings and positive feedback are considered. Subsequently, QA expertise is employed to compare these tools against each tool’s key parameters. Understanding how challenging it can be to find the right software, I have taken it upon myself to simplify the process for you.
An Overview of the Top Mobile App Performance Testing Tools
The following briefly explains various mobile app performance testing tools, highlighting each one’s ideal use case, distinguishing characteristics, and accompanying screenshots that exhibit the tools’ user interfaces.
A complete solution for testing mobile applications, New Relic is a tool for monitoring your app’s whole lifecycle, from the backend to the front end.
Due to its comprehensive feature set and ability to address all facets of app performance monitoring, it has been named one of the finest mobile application testing tools. Finding bugs and crashes is only one aspect of testing; another is gaining insight into how the app is functioning in the present and how users are utilising it.
The user experience tracking tools from New Relic make it easier to see how users are utilising the application. To display the most important data to your business, you may track user sessions, determine which features are most popular, and even design unique dashboards. This degree of insight can aid decisions about how to enhance the app and maintain user satisfaction.
CI/CD systems like Jenkins, CircleCI, and Travis CI, communication tools like Slack and PagerDuty, and additional monitoring and analytics tools like Grafana, Datadog, and Splunk are just a few of the over 500 apps that New Relic connects with. Additionally, it offers an API that may be applied to create original integrations.
With certain feature restrictions, the free version of New Relic is accessible and starts at $49/user/month.
The best feature of TestProject is that it is totally free! It’s a fantastic open-source solution that offers codeless testing for both Android and iOS apps and is based on Appium and Selenium.
The simplicity with which TestProject is used will astound you. Anyone can do it, for real! Imagine writing tests by just experimenting with your mobile application. Just that easy! Your every action is captured and magically transformed into a test for you. You may even export your recorded tests as code if you want to delve into sophisticated test authoring and feel more daring. Your developers can then intervene and provide their unique, creative, and personalised touch.
Another thing: TestProject is supported by a terrific community because it is open-source software. You can supercharge the tool with more features and integrations than you can shake a stick at, thanks to their over 1,500 add-on contributions!
Therefore, TestProject is the way to go if you’re searching for a free solution to test your Android and iOS apps. Thanks to its open-source community, it’s simple, enjoyable, and loaded with features!
Using real devices, Apptim enables you to evaluate how well iOS and Android apps operate. You can easily share the data with your team’s private workspace and generate thorough reports on the app render time, power usage, resource utilisation, crashes, errors, and more.
You won’t have to worry about making big modifications to your app or dealing with cumbersome software development kits that could impair performance when testing apps on real devices. Apptim is a quick-starting, lightweight tool that doesn’t require significant changes to your app.
Additionally, Apptim and Jira are completely integrated, allowing you to log and track any issues you find in your project management software. Thanks to this simplified procedure, it is even more convenient to optimise your app’s performance and keep track of any difficulties.
Both manual and automatic mobile app testing are made easy using Kobiton, a fantastic platform. They provide a scriptless solution that is quick and simple to use and allows you to run functional, performance, and visual tests.
You should test your app on real devices. You should test your app on real devices. Purchasing all those test phones can get expensive, and evaluate them individually. Kobiton has a farm of more than 350 iOS and Android devices.
Therefore, you can conduct your tests on all of those devices. And even using your equipment, you can test! The nicest thing is that Jira and the main CI/CD platforms, including Kobiton, integrate perfectly. As a result, incorporating it into your current process is simple.
Unlike other testing platforms for mobile apps, Appium is an open-source framework that excels at automating native, mobile web, and hybrid applications on iOS, Android, and desktop. Therefore, it is very adaptable and scalable, which is why it is so well-liked for automated mobile app testing.
Cross-platform compatibility is one feature that sets Appium different from the competition. Without touching the application you’re evaluating, you may run the same tests across various platforms. No alterations or recompiling is required! And what’s this? Both emulators and real-device testing are completely compatible with it.
However, there’s still more! A built-in UI automator in Appium creates thorough information logs and reports. Therefore, you are capable of performing robust analysis and debugging. It’s simply amazing!
BrowserStack is the best option for testing your app on actual hardware! A cloud-based solution, it provides testing on more than 3000 actual hardware and browser combinations. Over two million tests are done daily across 15 global data centres, demonstrating their incredible capability.
The interesting part is that BrowserStack offers both App Live and App Automate modes of mobile app testing.
You can naturally interact with a remote device with App Live, just as you would if it were in your hand. You get to see how your app performs in actual use cases, and you can analyse and debug it as you’re using it. It feels as though you are holding the device in your hands!
On the other hand, App Automate enables you to accelerate your test cycles by executing numerous tests concurrently on thousands of devices.
Additionally, Selenium and Jenkins are only a couple of the prominent tools that work well with BrowserStack. Additionally, it seamlessly interfaces with a broad range of CI/CD systems, automation frameworks, and other programs. They have your back.
HeadSpin is a potent mobile app testing solution that enables users to remotely test and debug mobile, web, audio, and video applications across hundreds of devices and operating systems. It allows testing in many settings and makes it simple to spot any variances.
Testing across various Android and iOS devices, both new and old, is insufficient for app developers. HeadSpin’s geolocation testing tool comes to the aid of ensuring the app’s effectiveness globally. This kind of test thoroughly covers all geography-dependent aspects, including data bandwidth and network infrastructure.
HeadSpin offers top-notch integrations. Along with CI/CD solutions like Azure and Jenkins, it smoothly integrates with well-known automation frameworks like Appium and Selenium. It also works with Jira, which streamlines and accelerates the testing procedure.
The wonderful cloud-based tool Perfecto performs online and mobile app testing with ease. Its main selling point is its flexibility, which lets you select between using code or going codeless. Don’t worry, they’ve got you covered!
Finding all those annoying flaws that could be present in your apps is what makes Perfecto unique. Through dashboards, heatmaps, videos, images, and crash logs across a wide range of devices, it gives you extensive information. Consequently, you can be sure that your app is in excellent condition.
You know, one of the problems with testing apps extensively is that automation scripts can become very brittle. They may malfunction due to UI changes, poor maintenance, or the incorrect testing frameworks. But don’t worry! The fantastic self-healing technology in Perfecto adjusts the testing flow automatically. As a result, you can continue testing without worrying about manually fixing such scripts. It helps you save time and money.
Perfecto is a real team player. With IDEs, continuous integration tools, and test automation frameworks, it integrates without any issues. As a result, you may effortlessly and hassle-free integrate it into your current system.
Overall, if you want to streamline and boost your online and mobile app testing game, Perfecto is definitely worth looking into.
Eggplant is a simple-to-use tool for evaluating user experience in desktop, mobile, and web apps. Users frequently gush about how easy it is to use for both novice and experienced testers.
Eggplant seamlessly switches from human to automated testing thanks to its machine-learning skills, enabling a quick release cycle. It ensures the removal of faults and inconsistencies before the program is delivered to production by doing continuous testing and compatibility checks.
Additionally, Eggplant provides connections to numerous CI/CD systems, such as Jenkins, Bamboo, GitHub, and others.
A reliable cross-platform testing solution is Ranorex Studio. Users can run automated tests on various old and contemporary systems with a single Ranorex Studio licence. For testers, this trait gives simplicity and flexibility.
The fact that it functions on iOS and Android is the nicest part! Ranorex has you covered whether you’re testing on actual hardware or emulators. Ranorex is remarkable because it has a great selection of features that even seasoned users will find appealing. Its straightforward drag-and-drop user interface makes constructing tests, even for beginners, simple. It is pretty easy to use!
Ranorex offers many features that even seasoned users will find enticing, which makes it so unique. Even beginners can easily create tests using its simple drag-and-drop user interface.
However, there’s still more! In Ranorex, integration is everything. With tools like Jira and Bugzilla for managing issues, TestRail and TestShell for managing tests, and even Azure DevOps and Jenkins for managing builds and releases, they have you covered.
Therefore, Ranorex Studio is a top-notch solution for all your cross-platform testing needs, whether you’re an expert or just getting started. You should unquestionably try it!
| TOOL |
DESCRIPTION |
FREE OPTION |
PRICE |
| New Relic |
The best tool to understand how your website works on both the front and backends. |
Free version available |
Starts From $49/user/month |
| Test Project |
A free community-based tool for testing websites, apps for mobile devices, and APIs. |
Free |
Free |
| Apptim |
A tool to check how well your mobile app works in various scenarios. |
Free plan for individual users / 10-minute sessions |
Unlimited users / 60-minute sessions starting at $99/user/month |
| Kobiton |
A platform designed to assist businesses in effectively testing their mobile apps. |
Free trial of 14-days |
From $75/month |
| Appium |
An open-source app testing framework for iOS, Android, and Windows. |
N/A |
Free to use |
| BrowserStack |
Best tool for testing on a wide range of real devices and browsers. |
Free trial available |
Starts at $29/month |
| Headspin |
A tool for testing how your app performs on different devices that include AI features. |
Free trial |
$99/user/month |
| Perfecto |
A cloud-based testing tool that can automatically correct errors. |
Free trial for 14-days |
From $83/month |
| Eggplant |
A software testing tool with AI support and an easy-to-use interface. |
N/A |
Starts at $3,400 for a single test stream |
| Ranorex Studio |
A robust tool for testing websites and apps across multiple platforms. |
Free trial for 30-days |
Plans starts at $3950 for a single-machine, perpetual licence |
Other Options
A selection of some excellent mobile testing tools is provided below. There are numerous other alternatives besides the ones that were already stated. Examining a couple more that weren’t on the top list is as follows:
- TestComplete: TestComplete is an automated UI testing tool for mobile devices. It stands out thanks to its AI-powered object identification, which enables the tool to recognize and communicate intelligently with diverse user interface components. The quality and dependability of UI tests are improved by this feature, making it easier for developers to see possible problems.
- testRigor: Known for its distinctive methodology, testRigor is a mobile app testing tool. It is usable by users with minimal coding knowledge because it enables automated testing using commands in simple English. TestRigor makes the testing process easier and makes it possible for efficient test automation by using natural language.
- Cucumber: The behaviour-driven development (BDD) methodology is used by the testing tool Cucumber. By offering a common language to construct test scenarios comprehensively, it facilitates collaboration between developers, testers, and business stakeholders. Everyone involved may easily understand and contribute to the testing process with Cucumber.
- TestGrid: TestGrid is a mobile app testing platform focusing on test case management and low-code authoring. Thanks to its low-code methodology, users don’t require substantial programming skills to construct test cases and scenarios. With the help of this technology, testing may be done more quickly and easily by a wider variety of testers.
- Android Studio: Android Studio primarily serves as an integrated development environment (IDE) for developing Android applications. It provides a feature that intelligently completes code to help developers write code more quickly. Android Studio is not just a testing tool, but it is imperative to the complete process of creating and testing Android OS mobile apps.
- Xcode: Xcode is Apple’s official Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for macOS and is primarily used for creating apps for the iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS platforms. It is a vital tool for iOS and macOS developers since it offers a complete set of features and tools for creating, testing, and debugging applications across the whole Apple ecosystem.
- Katalon: The all-inclusive testing tool Katalon offers to test on desktop, mobile, and API platforms. With its low-code approach, testers may create and run tests without writing voluminous code. Teams who want to test different components of their apps using a single tool frequently choose Katalon because of its adaptability.
- Test IO: Test IO is a crowd testing platform that provides a wide array of testing services for online, mobile, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. It stands out because of its adaptable service architecture, which uses crowdsourced real-world testers to test applications in various settings while offering insightful comments and spotting potential problems that automated testing would miss.
- Webdriver: Testing of online applications may be automated using the web automation tool Webdriver on various platforms and browsers. It may be used to test web-based mobile applications, but it is not just a mobile testing tool. Because of its solid features and cross-browser interoperability, Webdriver is frequently used in web application testing.
- Selendroid: Selendroid is a mobile testing framework created especially for Android apps. It allows testers to automate tests for both hybrid and native Android applications. Selendroid is a great option for Android app developers because it offers a wide range of options for interacting with the user interface parts of the app.
Each tool caters to various testing requirements and preferences with unique features and capabilities. One or more of these tools may be a valuable addition to the testing toolset, depending on the project requirements and the team’s experience level.
Types of App Performance Tests to Run
Testing the performance of a mobile app is a challenging procedure that entails looking at many factors to ensure the app runs properly. Let’s simplify it by saying it like this instead:
You must use this one to ascertain how much your software can manage. Consider it a way to gauge how well your app works when there is a lot of traffic. When too many users are utilising it at once, you want to know when it will break. It’s comparable to finding out how fast your car can drive before it sputters.
Now, it’s time to test your app’s capabilities. We want to examine how it reacts when the CPU, system memory, or other hardware resources are fully utilised. It’s like putting your app through a rigorous exercise to test if it can withstand the strain without crashing.
It all comes down to knowing what the software is capable of. How many users and features can it support without slowing down or breaking down is what we’re interested in finding out. Consider this a test of how many passengers your bus can accommodate without becoming congested.
Imagine a sudden increase in traffic, such as a gridlock on a highway. This test simulates that scenario to determine how effectively your app responds to an unexpectedly high load. It’s similar to see if your app can maintain its composure throughout a traffic jam without degrading performance.
Performance testing is becoming essential in the creation of mobile apps because:
- Users have short attention spans, so if your software is slow or crashes, they won’t hesitate to uninstall it and try another one.
- There is intense rivalry: Your app needs to stand out from the other innumerable apps by offering a seamless user experience.
- Battery and data usage: Performance problems can result in the user’s battery being drained and their valuable data being consumed, which can be a major turnoff.
Therefore, it is crucial to incorporate these performance checks while creating your mobile app to avoid all of those issues. It’s like running a series of fitness checks on your app to ensure it’s constantly in tip-top shape for your users.
Conclusion
In conclusion, performance testing for mobile apps is a necessity. To keep ahead of the competition, you must guarantee your users have a flawless experience. This post has covered all fundamental performance testing ideas and shared the top 20 mobile app performance testing tools for 2023. By utilising these techniques, you can optimise your apps for various user circumstances, leaving your users happy and their competitors in the dust.
Never forget that the user experience is crucial in today’s fast-paced mobile app industry. Performance testing is your secret weapon for identifying and resolving problems that can cause your app to run slowly and repel users. You are prepared to gauge, evaluate, and improve your app’s performance with the selection of top tools we have discussed. Keep up with the times, produce unique mobile experiences, and your users will keep returning for more! Everyone has a good test!
FAQs
What important performance indicators should mobile app testers pay attention to?
App reaction time, CPU utilisation, memory consumption, battery consumption, network latency, and app crash rates are some crucial performance indicators to pay attention to.
What issues could arise when testing mobile application performance?
Testing on numerous devices and OS versions, coping with network fluctuations, assuring accurate test data, and locating bottlenecks in the app architecture are all frequent issues in mobile app performance testing.
What are the most popular programming languages for mobile app performance testing?
Depending on the testing framework and tools, mobile app performance testing can be done with languages like Java, Python, Ruby, and JavaScript.
What are some best practices for mobile app performance testing?
Best practices call for testing frequently and early during development, testing on actual hardware, establishing reasonable performance targets, taking into account real user scenarios, and routinely revising testing plans.