I'm looking for a more developer friendly alternative to HP (Mercury) Quality Center.
I'm interested to find out what other tools developers & testers are using out there to manage their functional and regression test cases.
I'm looking for a more developer friendly alternative to HP (Mercury) Quality Center.
I'm interested to find out what other tools developers & testers are using out there to manage their functional and regression test cases.
Feel free to take a look at our software TestRail. TestRail is a fresh and modern approach to test management (e.g., all real-time statistics and activity charts are built-in and are always visible; there's not need to run complicated reports etc.).
alt text http://www.gurock.com/images/feature/testrail-screenshot.png
HP Quality Center is not affordable for 99% of the companies. Testlink (http://teamst.org) is free but has a bunch of limitations and they do not provide any commercial support. XStudio http://www.xqual.com
You should also look at QMetry test management tool. It's a pretty sleek tool and integrates well with several defect trackers and test automation tools. The web address http://www.qmetry.com
For a much cheaper commercial alternative SpiraTest from Inflectra seems to be becoming quite popular these days. For open source check out TestLink.
There are probably more than 20 different software applications that offer testcase repositories, testcase management and test management. These three phrases mean different things. Prices vary from downright cheap to enterprise class.
of the applications that do test management, all the tools probably do 80% of the same thing. standard rule of 80/20 applies. There are a couple applications that are better because they offer valuable functionality the others don't. (everyone will have their own features but they are not universally valuable)
buyers need to ask themselves these 10 questions:
1) if they want to be locked into a suite of products that does everything, albeit not as well, vs best of breed technologies,
2)if they want to use a product as designed by the vendor or customize the software to make it their own platform.
3) if they want out of the box flexibility to integrate with any other infrastructure or pay professional services for customizations,
4) if they want to submit a bug from the TM tool into a JIRA/Bugzilla or want a UI that allows one to do all defect activities within the TM tool which saves time to do more testing
5) if they want to rely on users to manually refresh screens to know about changes or use technology to have the changes automatically pushed to them
6) if they want customisable dashboards per project or per customer or if one size fits all
7) if they want to use past project history to predict finish dates for current projects and plan future projects vs use one's gut feel.
8) if they want to have their outsourced company manage them or if the company wants to manage their providers
9) if they are willing to force their organization to change software app year over year in the event a selection of an entry level tool is made or if one's better selecting an application they will use for years to come. 10) if they want to make a business decision to manage the testing team with accountability and visibility or let them testers choose a tool they like for their day to day use.
Ask your vendors if they have can do the above. I hope this helps
Another very good solution for a QA Management suite ist aqua. It includes like Quality Center the test, requirements and defect management but also a project management module. It is really user (and developer) friendly.
You also have the possibility to use different test tools directly from aqua to have the flexibility to select the optimal tool based on your automation needs independent from the test management.
We use it already in multiple projects and I got very good feedback from all project members (developer, tester, project manager, ...)
You can use QPack ALM of Orcanos which is the closest replacement for quality center. The price is reasonable and they also provide a free version for small teams, including test management, requirements management and defect tracking
Jack
Have a look at StoryTestIQ (STIQ), a mashup of Selenium and FitNesse. It's way more developer friendly than QC and can be used too to create "executable specifications" (for BDD style development).
Try Vienna 2 from http://www.nmqa.com/ as far as I know this is the only serious free test management tool, partenered and certified by microsoft. It will aid you during all the test cycle.
When comparing tools against Quality Center you should start by assessing how they (the other tools) stack up to QC's functionality. "HP Quality Center has several modules―requirements management, release and cycle management, test plan, test lab, defects management, and dashboard reporting―that are seamlessly integrated to allow for the smooth flow of information across testing stages." more of the write found here: http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA0-9587ENW.pdf
So it would be best if when providing the responses above, that the contributor make the connections between the suggested replacement tool to QC, for example state that "your suggestion" has a test plan, test lab and defects management section but not the others, etc.
I have been a long time user of QC, and I would be very interested in some hard facts/findings of how another tool can perform just like or better than QC currently does. I would have to say that if anyone has in depth knowledge of one of the tools stated above AND they have also used QC for more than 1 yr then they should give their "detailed" Pros & Cons on the subject. This way more of us that are used to QC and find ourselves moving to a company that does not have/want QC can feel confident they can provide the same level of functionality of QC in some other tool.
Maybe it should be the actual Tool creator who should take the time to tell us all how they stand up next to QC's functionality.
Just my professional input.
We've used Selenium before and it's been quite good for our front end testing. We've also used the ArtOfTest WebAii tools before and it had a lot of good support for .net developers.