Evaluating the Performance and Capabilities of Popular Android Mobile Application Testing Automation Frameworks in Agile/ DevOps Environment

Abstract: The number of mobile applications has increased tremendously over the last decade, thereby also having increased the importance of mobile application testing. Testing is a very crucial process in the development of a mobile application to ensure reliability and proper functionality. In an Agile/DevOps environment, test automation is an integral part in order to support the continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment principle. There is a plethora of mobile application testing automation frameworks available in the market today. Android testing frameworks were chosen for this study because of the prevalence of Android applications in the market today. The focus of this study is the comparison of the most popular mobile application testing automation frameworks in terms of performance and capabilities in an Agile/DevOps environment. In order to achieve this, firstly, the three most popular mobile application testing automation frameworks to be used for the study were identified. Secondly, the Key Performance Indicators and capabilities to be used for comparison of the frameworks were identified. Then, test cases in a complex mobile application were designed for analysing the frameworks based on the criteria gathered. Finally, the test cases were integrated in a Continuous Integration/ Continuous Delivery pipeline to gather results and perform a more detailed comparison in an Agile/DevOps environment. From this study, Espresso turned out to be the best framework in terms of KPI analysed beating the other frameworks in all the KPIs, while Robotium was second best followed by Appium. But on the other hand, Appium was the best framework in terms of capabilities by having ability to execute the maximum number of capabilities analysed followed by Robotium while Espresso was the worst framework in this criteria.