10 Best Cypress Stack Alternatives in 2024

Cypress! No, not the tree - the front-end testing tool.

Jokes aside, Cypress has made quite a name for itself as being a powerful, open-source, front-end testing tool. It was designed specifically with developers and QA engineers in mind, allowing them to more effectively work on their applications that use modern Javascript frameworks.

That being said, Cypress is not the only front-end testing solution out there. There are many users actively looking for options that better suit their needs.

If that sounds like you, then you’ve come to the right place. We will dive into the specifics, listing 10 of the best Cypress alternatives on the market today.

But before we start listing names, let’s look deeper into what makes Cypress tick.

Cypress key feature

Being an open-source solution, Cypress offers a lot of flexibility. At its core, it allows you to test modern apps directly in the browser. This means that you can watch your component and end-to-end tests in real-time while your application is in development.

In addition to testing, Cypress also allows you to debug failures in browsers. Since it runs directly in the browser, it makes it quite easy to debug using the developer tools that you already know and use.

With Cypress, there are no servers, drivers, or any other dependencies that would contribute to a complicated installation or configuration. They pride themselves on the user’s ability to write a passing test within a few minutes.

Cypress pricing

Although Cypress is primarily known as an open-source and free tool, they do offer a cloud solution. Aside from the free option, you have 3 options when choosing Cypress Cloud.

First, you have the Team plan at $75/month. This plan includes 50 users and up to 10,000 tests each month. Also with this plan, you get Flake detection and helpful integrations with tools like Jira.

Next, the Business plan starts at $300/month. This plan also includes 50 users and 10,000 tests, but you gain access to features like SSO, Spec Prioritization, Auto Cancellation, and more.

Finally, they offer an Enterprise plan. All the specifications of this plan can be customized to meet your needs. This means unlimited users and tests, as well as full access to the platform’s features.

Top 10 Cypress Alternatives 2024

Cypress is a great tool, but it’s not for everyone. If you’re not a fan, then don’t worry. There are plenty of competitors out there that might better suit your needs. Here’s a list of the top 10 Cypress alternatives in 2024:

1. Playwright

Developed by Microsoft, Playwright is an open-source automation library dedicated to browser testing and web scraping. Since its creation back in 2020, it’s become very popular among programmers for its ability to automate tasks in Chromium, Firefox, and Webkit with a single API.

With its cross-platform capabilities, Playwright allows you to test on Windows, macOS, and Linux CI or locally, headless or headed. It’s also cross-language, giving you the ability to use the Playwright API in Typescript, Python, .NET, Javascript, and Java.

Playwright also implements what they call flake resilient. This means that it will wait until the elements are actionable before performing any actions. That, combined with the rich introspection events, eliminates artificial timeouts, which are the primary cause of flaky tests.

Better Stack is a monitoring tool that allows you to keep tabs on critical infrastructure elements, schedule on-call coverage, and resolve incidents before they get out of hand. Better Stack also allows you to run/host Playwright script so that we can help monitor your front end, too. All you have to do is copy and paste, and we’ll take care of the rest.

🌟Key features

• End-to-end browser testing

➕Pros

• Can be run using Better Stack
• Open-source
• Cross-platform
• Cross-language
• Flake-resistant testing
• Fast and reliable

➖Cons

• Overhead can be expensive with maintenance, running your server, etc.

2. Selenium

Selenium is mostly used for automating applications for testing purposes, but it isn’t limited to just that. Selenium promotes itself as a tool that automates browsers, making it quite a bold and powerful tool. It’s a lot of power packed into a single tool, and what you do with it is limited only to your imagination.

Within the tool, Selenium offers 3 solutions: WebDriver, IDE, and Grid. WebDriver is a collection of web-driving bindings that are language-specific. IDE allows you to record and playback interactions with the browser through Chrome, Firefox, and Edge add-ons. Finally, Grid allows you to run tests against numerous combinations of browsers and operating systems.

🌟Key features

• Automated web browser and mobile testing

➕Pros

• Open-source
• Full browser automation
• Language independent
• Parallel testing
• Cross-platform

➖Cons

• Overhead can be expensive with maintenance, running your server, etc.
• Requires some 3rd-party tool bindings
• Script-based approach means slow testing development
• User reviews suggest that Selenium struggles to generate test reports

3. Keploy

Keploy is another open-source testing automation tool that’s been designed to help you turn real user traffic into test cases. Simplifying API testing, Keploy focuses on automating test generation and cutting down on the effort it takes to maintain test suites.

One of the features that makes Keploy a compelling Cypress alternative is the automated test and stub generation feature. This feature turns real interaction into test cases, thus reducing the need for manual test writing, and saving time, effort, and perhaps even a little money.

On top of that, Keploy offers native integration with plenty of popular tools and workflows. Because of this, most teams can effortlessly integrate Keploy into their already existing development process without missing a beat.

🌟Key features

• Automated API testing

➕Pros

• Open-source
• AI-driven
• Automated test and stub generation
• Native integrations

➖Cons

• Overhead can be expensive with maintenance, running your server, etc.
• Very few reviews online

4. Rainforest QA

Rainforest QA is a great addition to this list with its innovative, codeless software testing solution. Its main goal is to curate solutions that help teams simplify the testing process and run it more efficiently.

What makes Rainforest QA a great choice is that it doesn’t require deep coding knowledge to get started. It's made for beginners, but that doesn’t mean that it’s exclusively catered to them. The way RainforestQA standardized testing reduces the amount of time and resources needed for anyone of any skill set.

RainforestQA executes actions outside of the typical browser environment and significantly expands your testing capabilities. It makes it easy to integrate with existing CI/CD processes for continuous deployment pipelines that help enhance your workflow efficiency.

🌟Key features

• Automated web browser testing

➕Pros

• Open-source
• No coding skills required
• AI-driven
• Broadens testing capabilities beyond browser interactions
• Easy to integrate with existing CI/CD processes

➖Cons

• Overhead can be expensive with maintenance, running your server, etc.
• No testing for mobile apps
• User reviews complain about limited testing customization options
• User reviews indicate that RainforestQA is unable to test on local environments
• User reviews complain about inaccurate tests

5. Katalon

Katalon Studio blends the power of Selenium and Appium, making for a decently comprehensive testing solution. It’s very versatile, allowing you to test across multiple environments like web, mobile, API, and desktop applications.

Katalon’s user-centric interface simplifies otherwise complex testing tasks. Like a few other choices on this list of Cypress alternatives, it caters to both technical and non-technical people. Combine this with the robust feature set, and Katalon makes a good choice for diverse testing teams.

🌟Key features

• Automated web browser and mobile testing

➕Pros

• No technical skills required
• Versatile testing capabilities across multiple platforms and environments
• Paid and open-source options
• AI-driven
• Fast scripting with keyword-driven testing

➖Cons

• Overhead with the open-source option can be expensive with maintenance, running your server, etc.
• User reviews complain about needing to pay for licensing to utilize CI/CD integration
• User reviews complain about hardware requirements
• User reviews complain about an inactive open-source community

💲Pricing

Since most of the tools on this list are open-source, not all of them will get pricing sections. But, Katalon offers both an open-source solution and a paid one, so let’s talk about it briefly.

The base package for Katalon is open-source, meaning that it is completely free to use however you want. However, as some of the user reviews mention (linked above) features such as CI/CD integration require a paid subscription to utilize.

Prices for Katalon start at $208/month but can go up significantly from there. For example, the $208 only covers Katalon Studio Enterprise. If you want to use Katalon TestCloud, that’s an extra $192 per month, and Katalon Runtime Engine is an extra $166 per month. They also charge extra for Katalon TestOps. $41/month for 3,500 test results, and $135/month for 10,000 test results.

Katalon even offers a completely custom Enterprise solution, which will also come with a custom price tag. Overall, however, Katalon can become quite expensive if you want to utilize the full platform.

6. Testim

Testim is yet another tool on this list that utilizes AI to enhance the reliability and efficiency of automated test results. Designed for modern development teams, Testim offers Chrome extensions to record basic test steps as well as the flexibility to inject more complex JavaScript for more advanced situations.

If you’re looking for something that’s not too simple but not too complicated, Testim is a good option. It balances ease of use with robust capabilities to bring a solution that falls right in the middle of the road as far as testing solutions go.

What’s more, Testim uses AI for efficient and intelligent test creation and maintenance. This feature extends throughout the entire testing process within Testim.

🌟Key features

• Automated web browser and mobile testing

➕Pros

• AI-driven assistance
• Easy-to-use Chrome extension
• Customizable with JavaScript
• Easily scalable

➖Cons

• Not inherently open source (utilizes some open-source frameworks)
• Very few reviews online
• User reviews complain about limited integration options

💲Pricing

Since Testim isn’t open-source, you’ll have to pay for their services. Unfortunately, they do not offer any dollar amount online, and force you to reach out for a quote.

7. Webdriver

Webdriver is an open-source solution for Node.js. It enables both command-line and JavaScript automated testing. Webdriver supports all the popular browsers, and has an impressive fleet of integrations, even more so than Cypress. That said, if you’re looking for a seamless experience with JavaScript, Cypress is the better option.

Because of its open-source nature, Webdriver is very flexible. The customizable framework alone is enough to entice developers, as it can be tailored to all sorts of servers, plugins, and reporters.

Webdriver allows you to test real environments used by your real users. With full end-to-end or unit and component testing in browsers and an auto-wait feature that automatically waits for elements to appear before interacting with them, Webdriver is a great option for a Cypress alternative.

🌟Key features

• Automated web browser and mobile testing

➕Pros

• Open-source
• Compatible with every major browser, even cloud-based browsers
• Highly customizable framework
• Powerful automation protocol (Webdriver protocol)

➖Cons

• Overhead with the open-source option can be expensive with maintenance, running your server, etc.
• Zero recent reviews online

8. Puppeteer

Maintained by Google, Puppeteer is among the most popular testing automation tools out there today. It’s a reliable, simple, and stable way to automate browser testing.

That being said, by definition, Puppeteer is more of an automation tool and less of a testing tool. This makes it a popular choice for things like scraping, PDF generation, and more, too.

Puppeteer uses the same debugger protocol as Selenium to execute clicks. In practice, both Puppeteer (as well as Playwright) and Selenium utilize identical code for executing clicks.

However, Puppeteer will download Chrome for you and is known for being much easier to use than Selenium with development workflows.

🌟Key features

• Test automation

➕Pros

• Open-source
• Easy to set up
• Maintained by Google
• JavaScript-focused

➖Cons

• Overhead with the open-source option can be expensive with maintenance, running your server, etc.
• Limited browser support. Only supports Chrome and Firefox
• Not inherently a “testing” tool. Feels more like an “automation” tool

9. Jest

Jest is a JavaScript testing framework focused on correcting any JavaScript codebase. Managed by Meta, Jest is used primarily in projects that employ technologies such as TypeScript, Node.js, Babel, React, Angular, Svetle, Vue.js, and even more.

What’s interesting about Jest is that it has built-in mocking capabilities. This makes it way easier to test certain functions and modules, and it’s especially useful for isolating components and functions and testing them in isolation.

Similarly useful, Jest doesn’t require any sort of setup or configuration. You can get started impressively quickly, and the sensible defaults make it a lot easier for developers to adopt and use.

🌟Key features

• Automated web browser and mobile testing

➕Pros

• Open-source
• Cross-platform testing capabilities
• Mock testing
• Unit testing

➖Cons

• Overhead with the open-source option can be expensive with maintenance, running your server, etc.
• User reviews complain about slow speeds with higher-capacity loads and large amounts of code

10. TestCafe

TestCafe is a JavaScript testing automation framework built on Node.js, and it’s completely open-source. It runs on the Node.js platform and makes use of the browsers already built into a given tester. TestCafe can be used for API testing, but it is primarily used for and known as an end-to-end testing solution.

Since TestCafe is built on Node.js, you’ll have to install the Node.js runtime executables to run the scripts. A simple but very pleasing feature of Testcafe is that it doesn’t open its window for debugging as Cypress does. Instead, it has the Live Mode feature which usually works decently for debugging.

Testcafe uses JavaScript as its programming language of choice for creating tests. Testcafe has a dedicated selection of assertions readily available for use in creating test scripts. It's worth noting, however, that the platform does not offer any built-in support for third-party assertion libraries.

🌟Key features

• Automated web browser testing

➕Pros

• Open-source
• Codeless automation
• Cross-platform testing capabilities
• CI/CD integration

➖Cons

• Overhead with the open-source option can be expensive with maintenance, running your server, etc.
• Zero recent reviews online

Top 10 Cypress Alternatives Comparison

Conclusion

As we come to an end, I’ll stress the fact that some of these tools are paid, but most are open-source. Open-source means free to use, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t cost you anything.

Oftentimes, open-source tools come with a long list of costs that come with owning the tool. Hiring engineers to install and maintain the tool, server maintenance, and many other factors come into play when using an open-source tool.

That said, as always, please take your time and do your research. You must be comfortable with the tool, open-source or not.

Article by

Zach McDaniel

With his laptop as a sword and coffee machine as a shield, Zach is a content strategist here at Better Stack. When he's not wordsmithing, he's putting together PCs, working on cars, or scheming about how to own a zoo one day.

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