End To End Testing: Tools, Types, & Best Practices

End-to-end testing is a key part of software development, especially in agile methodologies. It’s more than just checking parts of the code; it’s about testing the whole application as a user would, from start to finish. This method checks that every system and feature works together correctly, ensuring the software does what it’s supposed to do.

In essence, end-to-end testing examines the application’s workflow—the path a user follows to complete tasks. It combines different testing types, such as GUI, database, and security testing. Tools such as Selenium and Cypress help automate these tests, making them more efficient and reliable.

What is End to End Testing?

End-to-end testing (E2E testing) refers to a comprehensive validation method that tests an application’s workflow from start to finish. It verifies that each component functions correctly within the entire system in real-world scenarios, ensuring the software behaves as intended from the user’s perspective.

E2E testing checks the system’s overall behavior against user expectations. It’s done after integration testing and before user acceptance testing to catch any system-wide issues early.

This testing ensures the application is robust and meets business needs, often leading to cost savings by finding problems before the software goes live.

Importance of End to End Testing

End-to-end testing serves as the final checkpoint before a product’s release, ensuring that every component of the application interacts correctly with others and that the system as a whole meets design and user requirements. Here’s why it’s essential:

• Holistic Validation: E2E testing evaluates the entire application, ensuring all parts work together seamlessly.
• User Experience: It verifies the system from a user’s perspective, enhancing the overall user experience.
• Early Defect Detection: Identifies issues early, reducing the cost and effort of later fixes.
• Performance Assurance: Validates performance under real-world conditions, ensuring the application can handle expected traffic and data loads.
• Security Checks: Confirms that security protocols are effective across all parts of the application.
• Reliability: Establishes confidence in the stability and reliability of the application before it goes live.
• Compliance with Requirements: Ensures that the final product aligns with both technical and business requirements.

Types of End to End Testing

Here are the main types of end to end testing:

• Functional Testing: Verifies that each feature works according to the requirements.
• Performance Testing: Assesses the application’s responsiveness, stability, and scalability under load.
• Usability Testing: Ensures the application is intuitive and user-friendly.
• Security Testing: Checks for vulnerabilities and ensures data protection measures are effective.
• Compatibility Testing: Confirms that the application works across different devices, browsers, and operating systems.
• Disaster Recovery Testing: Tests the application’s ability to recover from crashes, failures, or disasters.
• Compliance Testing: Ensures the application adheres to industry standards and regulations.

End to End Testing Tools

End-to-end testing tools are essential for automating the testing process, ensuring efficiency and accuracy. These tools can simulate user interactions, verify system integrations, and report on performance. Some widely used E2E testing tools include:

• Selenium: A powerful tool for automating web browsers, allowing testers to write scripts in various programming languages.
• Cypress: Offers fast, easy, and reliable testing for anything that runs in a browser.
• TestComplete: Provides a comprehensive set of features for web, mobile, and desktop testing.
• Robot Framework: A generic test automation framework for acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development (ATDD).
• Protractor: An end-to-end test framework for Angular and AngularJS applications. 

How to perform End to End Testing?

Performing end-to-end testing involves a series of steps to ensure that every aspect of the application is evaluated:

1. Requirement Analysis: Understand the application’s functionality and user flow.
2. Test Planning: Define the scope, objectives, and schedule of the testing process.
3. Test Environment Setup: Create a testing environment that mimics the production setting.
4. Test Case Design: Develop test cases that cover all possible user scenarios.
5. Test Execution: Run the test cases, either manually or using automation tools.
6. Result Analysis: Evaluate the test results to identify any defects or areas for improvement.
7. Reporting: Document the findings and share them with the development team for further action.

End to End Testing on Real Devices

Performing end-to-end testing on real devices is crucial as it ensures that your software behaves as expected in real-world conditions, capturing device-specific issues and user interactions.

Prerequisite

• Node.js: Install Node.js which includes npm (Node Package Manager).
• Selenium WebDriver: Install the selenium-webdriver package.
• Assert: Install assert package for writing assertions.
• BrowserStack Account: Sign up for BrowserStack and obtain your Automate Key.

Steps to perform end-to-end testing

Step 1 Setup a new Nodejs project.

Step 2 Add test configurations in a file named browserstack.yml file at the root.

userName: <your-user-name>

accessKey: <your-access-key>

platforms:

  - os: Windows

    osVersion: 10

    browserName: Chrome

    browserVersion: 120.0

  - os: OS X

    osVersion: Monterey

    browserName: Safari

    browserVersion: 15.6

  - deviceName: iPhone 13

    osVersion: 15

    browserName: Chromium

    deviceOrientation: portrait

parallelsPerPlatform: 1

browserstackLocal: true

buildName: browserstack-build-1

projectName: BrowserStack Sample

debug: false

networkLogs: false

consoleLogs: errors

Step 3 Write test script 

//test/sample_test.js

const assert = require('assert');

const { Builder, By, Capabilities, until } = require("selenium-webdriver");



var buildDriver = function() {

  return new Builder().

    usingServer('http://localhost:4444/wd/hub').

    withCapabilities(Capabilities.chrome()).

    build();

};



describe('BStack\'s Cart Functionality', async function() {

  this.timeout(0);

  var driver;



  before(function() {

    driver = buildDriver();

  });



  it('should allow items to be added to the cart', async function() {

    await driver.get('https://bstackdemo.com/');

    await driver.wait(until.titleMatches(/StackDemo/i), 10000);



    const productSelector = By.xpath('//*[@id="1"]/p');

    const addToCartButtonSelector = By.xpath('//*[@id="1"]/div[4]');

    const cartContentSelector = By.className("float-cart__content");

    const productInCartSelector = By.xpath('//*[@id="__next"]/div/div/div[2]/div[2]/div[2]/div/div[3]/p[1]');



    await driver.wait(until.elementLocated(productSelector));

    const productText = await driver.findElement(productSelector).getText();



    await driver.wait(until.elementLocated(addToCartButtonSelector));

    await driver.findElement(addToCartButtonSelector).click();



    await driver.wait(until.elementLocated(cartContentSelector));
    

    await driver.wait(until.elementLocated(productInCartSelector));

    const productCartText = await driver.findElement(productInCartSelector).getText();



    assert.strictEqual(productText, productCartText, 'The product name should match the name in the cart.');

  });




  after(async function() {

    await driver.quit();

  });

});

Step 4 Run test. Move inside the test folder and run the following command

npm run sample_test

Step 5 Review results on BrowserStack Automate dashboard

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Challenges in End to End Testing

End-to-end testing can be complex and demanding due to several factors:

• Complex User Scenarios: Simulating real-world user interactions can be challenging.
• Test Environment: Setting up a test environment that accurately reflects production can be difficult.
• Data Management: Ensuring test data is consistent and reliable requires careful planning.
• System Integrations: Testing the interactions between different systems and components can reveal unexpected issues.
• Resource Allocation: E2E testing often requires significant time and resources to execute effectively.
• Flakiness in Automation: Automated tests can sometimes be unreliable, requiring regular maintenance and updates.

Best Practices for End to End Testing

Adopting best practices in end-to-end testing is crucial for delivering a reliable and user-friendly application. These practices help streamline the testing process and ensure that the final product meets quality standards. 

Here are some of the best practices for End to End Testing:

• Design test cases that cover all functionalities and user scenarios.
• Use automation tools to increase efficiency and coverage.
• Keep test cases current with application changes to maintain relevance.
• Focus on testing the most important workflows that users are likely to perform.
• Test with data that closely mimics what will be used in production.
• Work closely with developers, business analysts, and users to understand requirements and expectations.
• Regularly review test results and update strategies as needed.

Conclusion

End-to-end testing is a comprehensive approach that ensures an application behaves as expected in real-world scenarios, from start to finish. It is crucial for verifying the integrity of application workflows and enhancing user experience. By rigorously testing all components and user flows, end-to-end testing helps teams deliver robust and user-centric software products.

Testing on real devices and browsers help you ensure that you can check end to end user flows in your application from the user’s perspective. Real device cloud like BrowserStack Automate allows you to test under real user conditions that help you find issues before making your application live. 

BrowserStack Automate integrates well with all popular frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Puppeteer, NightwatchJS, and CICD tools like Jenkins, CircleCI, Azure, and many more to deliver a seamless testing experience with rich artifacts and enhanced debugging capabilities.

Try BrowserStack Automate Now