Pros & Cons of Automation Testing

It is important to weigh the pros and cons of Automation Testing before employing it for our use. This can also help us understand where Automation Testing is relevant - and where it's not recommended.

One of the main benefits of Test Automation is the capacity for Regression Testing. Regression Testing involves re-executing test cases every time changes are made to the application.

Regression Testing can be optimized by integrating the Automated Unit & Integration Tests into a CI/CD pipeline. A CI/CD pipeline is simply an automated procedure consisting of steps that are performed after every update to the application. GitHub Actions and Jenkins are two popular tools which support CD/CI pipelines, and we will learn about these concepts in detail, in later sections.

Automation Testing is considerably faster than Manual Testing, and it eliminates the chance of Human Error, as human testers can make mistakes or miss important details while performing the tests.

Furthermore, Automation Testing doesn't require a human workforce to perform the tests, reducing the long-term costs of testing. Automation Testing Tools also help us keep track of the code coverage of test cases, potentially improving the comprehensiveness of tests.

In spite of the numerous benefits of Automation Testing, relying mainly on it as a testing method is not a good idea since there are certain limitations to it as well. Just like how we cannot perform Performance and Regression Testing manually, we can also not perform Usability and Exploratory Testing in an automated manner.

It is also important to keep in mind that although Automation Testing has lower long term costs, the initial setup cost can be significant, hence increasing the initial investment. Automation Testing also requires Technical Expertise and programming skills to implement and execute effectively. Last but not least, the output of Automation Testing greatly depends upon the quality of test cases, as faulty or poorly written test cases can produce inaccurate results.

Generally, the benefits of Automation Testing outweigh the cons, nevertheless, it's important to carefully consider both Manual or Automation Testing as options, and decide when to use either. The following table highlights the differences between Manual & Automation Testing:

The convention for most types of applications is to rely more on Automation Testing - while keeping Manual Testing a part of the process - for cases where Automation Testing is inapplicable, for-example Usability, Exploratory and Maintenance Testing. Therefore, Test Automation is generally a significant part of any medium to large scale application.