Testing your sites in different browsers is a must if you want to create high-quality websites. However, creating screenshots for each browser can be time consuming. Fortunately, there are amazing free tools out there that help you automate the entire cross browser testing process.
Cross browser testing is not easy, but it doesn’t need to be hard. You can actually use browser stacks at no charge. Here are ten free services that allow you to test your website in multiple browsers.
Comparium
Comparium is a fairly easy-to-use online cross-browser testing tool. It offers to check your website and find any potential visual inconsistencies in any browser with indicating the different versions as well. You need just enter the URL of your website site, and then you will see all screenshots taken in each of the preferred browsers. This new solution supports every popular browser (and all its versions), as well as operating systems. Comparium is a really good way to test a website before providing it to a customer.
Sauce Labs
Sauce Labs offers a rather unique cross-browser testing experience. Rather than simply taking screenshots of your website in different browsers, Sauce Labs allows you to record a live testing of your website. This is nice because if you want to view an error that you had in a browser again, all you need to do is replay a video as opposed to opening up the live test interface again. As a free user, you are given 200 minutes of testing each month, which is plenty.
Litmus
Litmus not only allows you to check the display of your website in different browsers, it also allows you to create reports of this information that you can keep on record or share with your project partners. In doing this, you can track your progress with bugs. Unfortunately, the free version only allows users to use two browsers, IE7 and Firefox 2, and conduct 50 tests each month.
Browsershots
Browsershots may be the most exhaustive cross-browser testing tool that exists. It includes all of the most popular browsers, like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, along with tons of other browsers that may sound unfamiliar, like Flock, SeaMonkey, and Iceape.
You have a lot of control over what you see. You can adjust resolution, color settings, and even Flash or JavaScript settings. How does it work? A distributed network of computers opens the URLs that you enter in their browsers.
BrowserStack Live
BrowserStack Live is a cross-browser testing tool available on desktop and mobile browsers that doesn’t require any installation. Pricing starts at $29 per month, though you can request a free trial.
This tool allows you to set up a comprehensive testing environment with support for firewalls, proxies, and Active Directory. BrowserStack Live supports new and old versions of Internet Explorer, Edge, Safari, Chrome, and Firefox on Windows and macOS.
You can test your website on real mobile devices running various operating systems using the BrowserStack cloud platform.
Advantages of BrowserStack Live:
- Can instantly start testing on a real device in the cloud
- Supports almost all real mobile device browsers
- Doesn’t require a device lab or virtual machines
Disadvantages of BrowserStack Live:
- Poor response time
- Some bugs found can’t be identified on real devices
Figure 1. BrowserStack Live interface
CrossBrowserTesting
CrossBrowserTesting has a user-friendly interface and allows developers to perform cross-browser testing on a wide range of browsers, including ones for mobile platforms.
This tool is available for Windows, macOS, Ubuntu, Android, and iOS. It allows you to run manual, visual, and Selenium tests in the cloud on more than 2050 real desktop and mobile browsers. CrossBrowserTesting starts from $29 per month for a single user for live testing. Unlimited testing capabilities start from $100 per month for up to two users.
CrossBrowserTesting pros:
- Wide range of browsers and browser versions
- Suitable for quick testing
- Provides an opportunity to choose the operating system and screen resolution
- Supports mobile browsers
- Offers a trial version
CrossBrowserTesting cons:
- High price, especially if you need to perform testing on a large-sale project
- Not available on Linux
Figure 3. CrossBrowserTesting interface
Browserling
Browserling is an easy-to-use interactive online tool for cross-browser testing powered by HTML5 and JavaScript. It doesn’t require you to install Java or plugins. A license starts at $19 per month, but Browserling offers a limited trial version.
Browserling supports only Android and Windows and works with various versions of Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
Advantages of Browserling:
- Offers a free trial
- Supports over 40 versions of popular browsers
- Сan be used for functional and responsive testing
- Allows for pixel by pixel comparisons
- Suitable for quick testing
Disadvantages of Browserling:
- Doesn’t support rare browsers
- Doesn’t support operating systems besides Android and Windows
- Free version allows only three-minute limited sessions and supports a limited number of browsers
Figure 5. Browserling interface
TestComplete
Automate browser testing process for browser compatibility checks on different configurations and operating systems.
Features:
- TestComplete is a UI functional test automation tool that you can use to create and run tests on any web application.
- Run tests in parallel across 2000+ real environments – without any setup or configuration.
- Get real-time access to the latest devices, resolutions, browsers, and operating systems in TestComplete’s device cloud.
Choose from multiple programming languages, such as JavaScript and Python, or use TestComplete’s script-free Record & Replay function to easily create automated UI tests.
QA Wolf
QA Wolf is the new kid on the block and is a true modern testing tool for the entire team.
Without much name recognition yet, QA Wolf is a hidden gem gaining quick adoption with over 2,700 GitHub stars at the time of this writing. This testing tool prioritizes ease-of-use as its main differentiator and makes end-to-end test creation fast, simple, and powerful enough for everyone on your team to get involved.
Specifically, QA Wolf’s code generation engine is what makes this tool stand out and earn a spot on our list. As you browse a website, QA Wolf generates clean Javascript test code making it easy enough for anyone to create and maintain accurate tests. For more complex workflows, the test code can quickly be tweaked by developers.
Key Features:
- Create tests right from the browser – no installation or setup required. Getting started is super quick and painless. Just sign up for a free account, enter the URL you want to test, and start browsing your test paths.
- Convert your actions to code. No writing boilerplate code or learning programming languages. QA Wolf generates clean Javascript code as you browse a website thereby enabling anyone on your team to create tests.
- Re-run the selected code. Don’t worry about re-running an entire test when you only need to fix a line or two of code. QA Wolf lets you re-run only the code you select for quick troubleshooting.
- Run tests on Vercel/Netlify deployments or on a schedule with one click. Create tests and have them run automatically whenever you want.
- Run 100% of tests in parallel. Receive test results in minutes regardless of the number of tests you’re running.
- Get Slack & email alerts. Keep the entire team aware of the test results sent right to your inbox or company Slack channel.
- Understand failures with videos and logs. Understand and reproduce failures quickly with a video, logs, and the exact line of code the test failed on.
- Re-run and fix tests directly from the browser. Don’t run the code locally or wait for another CI build. QA Wolf lets you fix and maintain tests right in the browser.
- Collaborate with your team in real-time by sharing a link. Working with team members is quick and easy. Just invite them to your dashboard and start collaborating.
Conclusion
Web browsers can be a pain sometimes. You’re designing a site and your perfect code isn’t displaying as expected. To make things harder, web browsers don’t always interpret code the same way across the board. This is why it’s critical to test your websites across as many browsers as possible, meaning you need cross browser testing software.