What Is Appium? An Introduction to Mobile Automation Tools

Mobile automation testing evolved as a crucial facet of the robust Mobile software development process ensuring the overall development process to deliver superior quality solutions, under the controlled time cycles and cost schedules. While there are many types of mobile test automation tools available, with its exceptional capacities, Appium evolved as the best. Here we will explore what abilities make Appium very unique.

What is Appium?

Appium is an open source automation testing tool for testing a native mobile application and mobile-web application on both the platforms iOS and android using a WebDriver. It was developed and supported by Sauce Labs to automate native and hybrid mobile apps. Appium is a cross-platform mobile automation testing tool, which uses JSON wire protocol internally to interact with native apps of iOS and Android using Selenium WebDriver.

Why is Appium So Special?

Mobile automation testing is crucial to modern enterprises. Other than Appium there are many open source mobile test automation tools available on the market. Some of the popular ones are; MonkeyTalk, Robotium, KIF (Keep It Functional), Calabash and Frank, etc. 

87 percent of development teams have adopted some level of test automation. 70 percent teams believe that Open source tools like Selenium and Appium are most popular"

Testing Trends Survey-2017 Survey by Dimensional Research.

However, most of the tools require an additional agent that needs to be compiled with most of the application code so that the tool can communicate with the native mobile app. Apart from this, some of the key differences that keeps Appium ahead:

• Appium functions as a server and runs in the background like a Selenium Server.
• Has the capability to synchronize with TestNG testing framework
• Appium has a built-in UI Automator, capable of producing a detailed information log and generates a detailed reporting structure such as Ranorex.
• Appium targets to automate with any mobile app developed in various programming languages and different type of frameworks.
• You can take control with full access to back-end APIs and databases from test code.
• It aims tests developed using development tools irrespective of most of the programming languages and with the Selenium WebDriver API and language-specific client libraries.

Appium Benefits

Here are the most significant benefits Appium has compared to other mobile automation test tools:

• Appium uses standard automation APIs on all platforms, which there is no need to modify or recompile the app under test in any way.
• Test Scripts written in any of the programming languages such as Java, Objective-C, and JavaScript are compatible with web-driver.
• Compatible with any of the testing framework.
• Setup on a different platform is easier to handle.
• Has support to various programming languages like Java, Ruby, PHP, Node and Python.
• No need to install on the mobile devices to work with the tool.
• Appium uses Selenium WebDriver JSON wire protocol to work with the native apps.
• Can be integrated with other tools with the help of Java.

• Appium integration with Sauce labs can be cost effective, as it avoids the overhead of setting up of various multiple platforms(versions) and local environments for testing applications on multi devices and platforms. 
  

Conclusion

Choosing the right mobile automation test tool is the key to a successful enterprise. So, if you are looking out for help or confused on what suits you the best? Get in touch with our V-Soft’s Independent Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE) for free experts consulting.

About The Author

SriRam has a proven record in setting up multiple Testing Centers of Excellence (TCoE) for customers across North America, Europe, and the Caribbean Islands. He has traveled to Canada, and the West Indies to support his clients, as well as working in India. He currently resides and works in V-Soft's headquarters in Louisville, KY. He spent the last 17 years in the IT Services industry with large multi-national organizations. SriRam’s work experience ranges from small startups to large, multi-billion dollar organizations.  SriRam’s help in building and heading the QA Practice at V-Soft has allowed them to deliver better value add solutions to customers. He also helped position V-Soft as a market leader in the Independent QA CoE industry with proven, innovative in-house capabilities through strengthening their existing core processes in the QA space.