Appium vs Espresso vs XCUITest: A detailed comparison

Appium continues to be the dominant tool in the market. Also native frameworks like Espresso (for Android) and XCTest/XCUITest (for iOS) are gaining momentum for various reasons.

If you’re in search of the ideal mobile application testing framework for your business case, the Buyer’s Guide to Mobile Test Automation is available for download. It’s critical to gather all necessary information before selecting your automation tools as you embark on your journey toward mobile test automation. If you’re currently considering Appium, Espresso, and XCTest/XCUITest, like many other teams, it’s essential to assess the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. To simplify this process, we’ve gathered information on each solution and compiled a list of their pros and cons.

What is Appium?

Appium is a test automation framework that is community-maintained and open-source. It can automate various types of applications, including Native, Hybrid, mWeb, Mac, and Windows apps. By following the Selenium W3C protocol, Appium allows for using a single set of test codes across Android and iOS applications.

To communicate with Android apps, Appium utilizes Espresso or UIAutomator2, while XCUI is used for iOS. Essentially, Appium creates a consistent web driver interface atop Google and Apple’s automation backends, providing a reliable and stable solution.

Features of Appium

Appium offers a plethora of features that make it a highly sought-after choice for mobile application testing. Its foremost advantage is its cross-platform compatibility, which enables developers to write tests in any language and test their applications on multiple platforms. This aspect is particularly useful for teams that need to test their mobile applications on various platforms.

Another significant feature of Appium is its ability to support both native and hybrid applications. With Appium, developers can test native applications for Android and iOS as well as hybrid applications such as Cordova or React Native. This functionality allows developers to easily test their applications on a range of devices and platforms.

Moreover, Appium supports diverse device configurations, including phones and tablets, which ensures an optimal user experience. Additionally, Appium supports running tests in parallel, enabling developers to test their applications swiftly and effortlessly across multiple devices.

Benefits

Appium offers several benefits for testing mobile applications:

• Being open-source, Appium is free to use and allows developers to test their applications easily and quickly.

• It supports a broad range of programming languages, enabling developers to write tests in their preferred language with ease.

• It supports both native and hybrid applications, making it easier for developers to test their applications on multiple platforms.

• Appium supports a wide range of device configurations, allowing developers to test their applications on different devices and ensure the best user experience.

• It also supports running tests in parallel, enabling teams to test their applications quickly and efficiently on multiple devices using a cloud-based platform like LambdaTest. LambdaTest is a digital experience testing platform that provides a range of testing solutions, including automation testing with Appium.

One of the key features of LambdaTest is the ability to perform Appium parallelization, which is the process of running multiple automated tests simultaneously across different devices and browsers.

With LambdaTest, users can run their Appium test scripts on a wide range of virtual machines and real devices, all of which are hosted in the cloud. This allows for the execution of tests in parallel, which helps to significantly reduce the time required for testing.

Limitations

Appium, despite its numerous advantages, also comes with some limitations:

• Slow test execution: One of the drawbacks of using Appium is that it runs on a client-server architecture, which can result in slower test execution. The server takes some time to initialize and execute each command in the test script.

• Complex setup: Appium’s setup can be complex, requiring a high level of programming skills. For inexperienced users, proper guidance is necessary to set up the server correctly.

What is Espresso?

Espresso is a popular testing framework specifically designed for developers to create automation test cases, with a primary focus on UI testing. Created by Google, the framework strives to provide a straightforward yet powerful solution. As one of the most popular Android app testing frameworks, Espresso is widely utilized by QA professionals.

Through Espresso’s automation testing capabilities, black-box testing can be enhanced, and QAs can test individual components and fragments during development cycles. This can lead to improved testing efficiency and overall app quality.

Features:

Espresso offers several crucial features for testing Android applications. It excels at detecting changes in the user interface, which allows developers and testers to receive prompt feedback on any adjustments or additions to the interface.

The framework also integrates seamlessly with Android Studio, enabling easy access to its features for developers and testers. Furthermore, Espresso generates HTML reports as test results, making it effortless for testers and developers to track the performance of their tests.

Moreover, Espresso supports both the Espresso and JUnit test frameworks, which gives testers the flexibility to use the framework that best fits their requirements. Additionally, Espresso provides support for test automation, which results in more efficient test execution.

Benefits

• Automatic synchronization: Espresso provides automatic synchronization of UI elements and test actions, detecting when the primary thread is idle and executing the test commands at appropriate times.

• Ease of use: For most Android developers, Espresso is the preferred option, particularly for the Espresso Test Recorder. It allows the creation of UI tests for Android apps with no need for advanced programming skills. By recording user interaction with the application, the code is generated automatically. Espresso can also be seamlessly integrated with Android Studio, making it easy to adopt and use.

• Espresso enables developers to compile automated Android UI tests into separate APKs, which can be executed alongside the app on the device. This makes the testing process more convenient and straightforward. Additionally, Espresso offers faster feedback as it does not rely on server communication to perform the tests.

• Concise API: Espresso’s API is straightforward, consisting of three components: viewMatchers, viewActions, and viewAssertions. As Espresso doesn’t require server communication, it provides developers with feedback faster.

Limitations:

• Limited language support

Compared to Appium, Espresso supports fewer programming languages, with only Java and Kotlin being supported.

• No cross-platform support

One of the drawbacks of Espresso is its inability to support cross-platform testing. As most organizations today want to expand their apps across different platforms, choosing Espresso can be inconvenient for testing as it restricts teams to testing only on Android.

• Focused on UI testing

While this may not be a significant drawback in Android testing, choosing Espresso can limit teams in testing for iOS devices.

• In addition, automating with Espresso requires access to the app’s source code, which can make test automation more complicated.

What is XCUITest?

XCUITest is a UI testing framework that was created by Apple and is built on top of XCTest, which is Apple’s unit testing framework. XCUITest provides app developers with a simple and easy-to-use framework for testing the UI of their iOS applications.

Since XCUITest is native to Apple, it provides developers with a level of integration and support that is not available in other UI testing frameworks. This integration makes it easier for developers to test their apps’ UI, as XCUITest provides access to many of the internal components and APIs that are used to build iOS applications.

Features

The XCUITest framework provides the XCUIElement class, which enables users to perform gestures such as tap, press, swipe, pinch, and rotate on the app’s user interface elements.

Additionally, the framework allows interaction with pickers through the NSPredicate class. XCUITest also provides various built-in assertions, such as XCTKVOExpectation, XCTNSNotificationExpectation, XCTDarwinNotificationExpectation, and XCTNSPredicateExpectation, among others.

Benefits

XCUITest, developed by Apple specifically for testing iOS apps in the XCode IDE using Swift or Objective-C, focuses on doing one thing exceptionally well: testing iOS apps quickly and reliably. Its streamlined architecture enables it to execute iOS tests faster and with little to no flakiness, making test results more trustworthy compared to Appium.

Setting up and maintaining XCUITest is straightforward, with fewer compatibility issues with XCode since both are developed under Apple’s release standards. With XCTest being part of the XCode IDE, iOS developers can create their tests more easily and conveniently, allowing them to check whether UI tests still pass after changing the app’s code without hassle. This allows developers to have their app’s source code and test code in one place, making it easier to maintain the codebase and practice less complicated workflows.

Limitations

• Limited to specific programming languages : XCUITest only allows writing test cases using Swift or Objective-C, making it ideal for iOS developers. However, this can be a disadvantage as QA engineers may need to learn a new programming language to write tests, limiting the choice of tech stacks. While XCUITest enables iOS developers to test frequently during development, it constrains the testing to a specific language stack.

• Only works for iOS platform: Since XCUITest is designed solely for iOS, it cannot be used to test Android or mobile web apps. It also requires exploring other test automation frameworks that rely on different technology stacks, making the entire setup more complex to maintain.

• Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that XCUITests can only be executed on macOS since Xcode can only be installed on this operating system. Developers who use Windows or other operating systems cannot run XCUITests natively on their machines.

In a nutshell …

Conclusion

UI testing is a crucial aspect of mobile app development, as it helps ensure that the user interface of the app works as intended and is responsive to user actions. Appium, Espresso, and XCUITest are three popular mobile app testing frameworks that can be used for UI testing. Each framework has its own set of advantages and limitations, making it essential to choose the right one for your project based on your requirements.

Choosing the right mobile app testing framework for your project is essential to ensuring the accuracy and reliability of your UI testing. Understanding the differences between Appium, Espresso, and XCUI is crucial to making the right choice for your project’s needs.