What is scriptless test automation?

There’s an ongoing trend in software development of making things simpler and more automated. Scriptless platforms are part of this trend. Such platforms provide users with graphical interfaces and convenient tools to develop and automate test scenarios without coding. This way, people with limited to no programming skills can participate in quality assurance activities.

Here’s how a scriptless platform usually works:

1. The user designs a test scenario and passes it by manually going through the scenario.
2. The platform records this user activity and turns it into test code.
3. When a user runs the test, the platform repeats previously recorded actions.
4. If the system behaves as expected, the platform marks the test as passed.
5. If the system’s behavior differs from the recorded scenario and returns a different result, the test fails.
6. The user reviews the failed scenario, describes the bug, and creates a ticket for it.

The most well-known scriptless test automation tools based on such a recording and playback workflow are Katalon Studio, Selenium IDE, Cloud QA, Leapwork, and Perfecto.

There are two key types of scriptless automation:

• No-code systems that allow users to develop test cases without writing a single line of code, instead using interactive graphical user interfaces (GUIs)
• Low-code platforms that provide GUIs with the option to add custom scripts to test cases

Originally, low-code and no-code test automation were created to test web applications that required lots of similar tests to confirm their usability across various browsers, screens, and devices. But nowadays, they are also used to develop mobile applications, customer relationship management systems, project management platforms, etc.

Scriptless platforms help organizations increase testing speed and employ a wider pool of users in QA. For example, any employee of an organization can create a test on a no-code platform and turn it into an automated test case. This saves time for QA specialists, software development engineers in test (SDETs), and automation engineers to focus on more challenging tasks.

Because of their simplicity, scriptless testing tools are great for smoke tests, in-sprint automation, and certain regression testing activities. But they can’t cover all the QA needs during product development. That’s why there’s no either-or choice between scriptless and script-based test automation. Later, we show how we combine scriptless and traditional testing at Apriorit to achieve optimal results in our QA activities.

In the full article on our blog, we describe the pros and cons of using this method and explain how to enhance your QA strategy with scriptless testing.