Kobiton vs Perfecto

Perfecto:

Perfecto has focused on offering both a Public Cloud and Private Cloud option for real device access. This gives teams more flexibility than with a tool like BrowserStack (only Public Cloud and also a Perfecto competitor), but their inability to make locally hosted devices available in the Cloud and their lack of a fully on-premises option (Perfecto only allows for a hybrid option with an on-premises and cloud combination) leaves many teams still looking for more flexibility.

Even with this lack of flexibility, Perfecto still comes in at one of the most expensive options for real devices access if you are looking for dedicated cloud devices. Also, their pricing models for device access and usage penalize the team who is attempting to run test automation at scale by charging for parallel and concurrent sessions.

Perfecto does offer desktop-web and cross-browser testing, which is something that Kobiton does not currently offer.

Kobiton:

Kobiton has prized security, flexibility, and performance above all else when it comes to real mobile and IoT device access and management. With in-depth clean-up policies for our secure Public Cloud (first-come, first-serve devices for edge testing), 100% dedicated-to-you device access with our Private Cloud, and the ability to cloud-ify your already-owned locally hosted devices for shared-remote-and-dedicated access, you can build a flexible real device lab in the cloud that works for the specific needs of any team across your organization. In addition to Cloud deployments, Kobiton also offers extra-sensitive fully on-premises deployments for teams who need it.

Kobiton’s on-premises and cloud real device labs are powered by our DirectTest technology that allow for rapid device launching speed, virtually zero-latency testing, and 30FPS video streaming during your manual session, for truly unparalleled real device lab performance.

Kobiton also helps you scale your automation with plans that don’t charge for parallel executions or concurrent testing. And, while Kobiton does not currently offer native desktop-web support, we do have a partnership with our sister company, Katalon, that provides desktop-web testing and automation offerings.

Perfecto:

Perfecto offers a manual testing canvas with support for a variety of gestures and reproducing real-word conditions. Their manual canvas offers a decent user experience with the ability to simulate image injection, spoof device location, and throttle network.

Kobiton:

No matter what real device option you choose, Kobiton offers a high-performing and effortless user experience. We focused heavily on these two items and built a manual canvas that offers support for complex gestures, ADB shell commands, geo-location, and more. We also offer real-time insight into logs that you can easily explore and download during your session.

Kobiton’s manual testing canvas has also set the industry standard for performance. Powered by our DirectTest technology, Kobiton enables low-latency testing (think virtually zero input lag) and 30FPS video streaming during your manual tests.

Kobiton has also made the jump from manual to automated testing easier, with the ability to either export a 100% open-standard Appium script from your manual session, or run that same test across your library of real devices with a few simple clicks (and no code required).

Perfecto:

Perfecto hasn’t focused too much on the automation engineer and point to their device availability as the major benefit when trying to scale test automation. However, Perfecto does offer a lightweight BDD solution called Quantum that they claim helps testers and developers better “Shift Left.”

Perfecto has been slow to adopt scriptless automation on mobile. Perforce did acquire a codeless automation provider in TestCraft that currently only supports codeless automation for desktop web. They also acquired 21labs in an effort to bolster their mobile automation efforts, but this solution isn't as robust, with the added disadvantage of managing a number of acquired solutions.

Kobiton:

Kobiton has focused heavily on both the automation engineer currently using Appium and the manual testing team that is looking to make the move to automation. With AI-driven Scriptless Automation, and AI-assisted Appium automation, you can easily make the move and/or scale your mobile test automation with Kobiton.

Teams leveraging Kobiton’s NOVA AI Engine have the ability to auto-generate 100% open-standard (and therefore non-vendor-locked) Appium scripts from a manual session, or automate a manual test and point that test to run across other real devices in the background without any code required. Our baked in Functional, Crash, Visual, and Performance assertions make each NOVA-driven test a Functional, Visual, and Front-end Performance Test, equipping your teams with a true “one test to rule them all” solution.

Beyond comprehensive, Kobiton’s automation offering is also flexible and inclusive. If you need a solution for manual testers, our 100% scriptless flow allows you author and execute automated Functional, Visual, and Performance tests without writing any code. If you’re an automation-mature team who is already using Appium, you have the choice to inject NOVA’s baked-in assertions into your existing Appium scripts (or scripts you generated with NOVA’s auto-generate capability mentioned earlier) by simply adding in Kobiton desired capabilities to your Appium script.

Kobiton:

Kobiton’s unique Session Explorer offers an easily navigable timeline that allows you to quickly and efficiently explore your test sessions across test steps, actions, and commands. With our comprehensive Insights Panel, you can easily view charts that dive into information such as CPU, memory, network, response time, network request and response payload, request and response headers (for Appium automation), and more!

Kobiton also makes it easy to share moments of failure with the rest of your teams. You can generate and share deep links that point to a specific test step or moment in a test, or use our native Jira integration to easily create a bug in your integrated Jira project that also links to the exact moment identified.

In addition to our Session Explorer, Kobiton offers a “within the UI” remediation menu that allows for you quickly and easily remediate for any Crashes, Functional issues, Visual blemishes/discrepancies, and Performance regressions caught by our baked-in assertions. From this menu, you can submit these issues as bugs, instruct our AI around strictness/relaxedness for future tests, dive into causes of issues, and receive recommendations around how to solve for certain problems.