Automation Testing Vs. Manual Testing: What's the Difference?

The whole software development life cycle is process has still the same fundamentals, but the way industries, especially the IT sector are fostering their products and lending services has drastically changed. The most important factor nowadays is quality, followed by time and cost. And the first two is governed by Software testers and QA analysts. Agile and DevOps are trending the process of training many Software testing classes in Pune and across the world are providing has also found an industrial approach.

Manual testing, being the oldest and widely used method and Test Automation, which has paved its way in the industry strongly and is now a trend, both have their own use cases and applications. So taking on the industrial point of view, many experts take both methods as two different entities. And hence corporate and students both are fixing their eyes on both Test automation as well as manual testing while choosing a Software testing training classes in Pune.

I will try to simply put the crucial difference between those, focusing purely on their applications:

·         Manual testing is governed by an individual using software whereas Automation testing uses automation tools to test the software.

·         Now, as machines are faster than human, if two similar characteristics of software is to be tested, Automation testing is far more faster than manual testing.

·         For a long run, Automation testing is better than manual testing in terms of ROI, although, initial investment is higher in Automation testing.

·         The most important difference is their use case or approach. Manual testing proves to be handy when the test a case has to run only once or twice, whereas Automation testing is super effective for regressive processes.

·         Manual testing on repetitive test cases might bore the tester and is prone to fatigues and errors. Whereas, Automation testing, using software tools and scripts perform with excellent accuracy.

·         Manual testing has no specific a framework to work with but they may use guidelines, checklists, etc. While Test automation is contained  by frameworks like Data Drive, Keyword, Hybrid to accelerate the process.

·         On a temporal basis, Automation testing has the advantage of not missing the deadlines whereas it is not the same with manual testing.

·         Manual testing is not prone to change in UI like ID of a button but in the case of automation testing, you are needed to update the script with the changes in the UI of AUT.

·         Test automation is very successful in this Agile oriented world because of the fact that automation testing allows users as well as stakeholders to check the test execution results or its status after login. Manual testing records are stored manually and are not readily available.

·         Talking about the investment, manual testing uses human resources whereas automation testing uses investment in tools.

·         Use case: Manual testing is still a demanding skill in IT sector (obviously IT departments of other industrial sectors as well) because ‘not everything can be automated’. And even after test automation, a manual review and a final test before deployment is always suggested and done. Automation testing is super helpful when it comes to regressive tasks or repetitive tests after several iterations of tests and feedback.

·         Manual testing is incorporated when the type of test is exploratory, usability or Ad-hoc. When the project is in the initial stage of development is preferable to go with manual testing. Automation testing is useful when the type of test is regressive, or load testing (checking if the system can handle a certain number of transactions and works efficiently even with its peak load) and/or performance testing (evaluating speed, scalability, and stability). Hence it is preferred to ‘not’ use test automation in adhoc and UI testing.

·         To be noted again, Automation testing required knowledge about programming and tools like Selenium and HP QTP(Quick Test Professional). Manual testing requires pure creative skills and knowledge about the product software more than the language used to build it.

·         Devops is affected by both the testing methods. Test automation has build verification testing, becoming an integral part of DevOps cycle. Whereas manual testing defeats automated build principle of DevOps.

To conclude, test automation is a buzzword among the world of Software testers and has been found to be profoundly useful for fast processing and accurate results. But it will be unwise to say that it has overtaken manual testing. The manual testing world market has been on a rise for many years and has never found a steep slope. If you are interested in exploring the testing world, Cyber Success has one of the premium quality Software testing training institute in Pune where educators with years of experience help you with industrial knowledge as well as applications of various test automation tools along with the change and adaptations in methods of manual testing as well. You can read my other blogs on CyberSuccess.biz, a leading Software testing training classes in Pune.