Top Device Clouds for Mobile App Testing

App Builder Appy Pie: Testing mobile apps is both a pain to carry out and a dire necessity when you are planning to release an app that you want to succeed in helping your business. This procedure has become even more of a pain as there is a wide range of OS versions of Android that co-exist and the myriad devices that have a variety of screen sizes, resolutions, capabilities, etc. and for iOS developers the environment is only a little conducive as the range of devices for them is a lot lesser and hence the scope of testing is a lot narrower.

What is a Device Cloud?

Simply put, a device cloud is a mobile testing environment that lets developers test out app performance remotely on a variety of smart devices. The device cloud has the ability to offer the organizations access to modern and legacy devices whenever needed so that they do not need to maintain an entire inventory of physical or real devices on their premises. The device clouds vary in their capabilities with some of them consisting of virtual or emulated devices and quite a few others that offer access to physical devices. There is no way to pronounce one better than the other because emulated device clouds let you test for scalability while offering you to handle multiple simultaneous requests in one go where as the ones with physical device offer the advantage of offering additional insights into the way factors like battery charge would impact the performance of the app.

There is a great range of device emulators available today that can be used for single device manual testing like the Android Virtual Device or AVD that is built into Android Studio, and the third-party option for Android, GenyMotion that has recently gained quite a bit of popularity. However, with these options you cannot carry out automated testing on a variety of devices.

If you want to carry out this kind of testing is made easier with the recent rise of cloud computing phenomenon. This phenomenon allows access to large device clouds or farms that feature hundreds or may be up to even thousands of real devices in combination with emulators and simulators. In cloud testing, the mobile developers do not have to bother with the impracticalities of bringing around their own devices if they want to carry out testing.

The mobile app cloud devices come in a variety of types and sizes that have a variety of different pricing models, has different target audience, feature sets and use cases. If, however you are not aware of it all, then it can become a little confusing for you, hence Appy Pie has compiled a list of options for you to explore and work through.

#1 AWS Device Farm

This is an amazing device as it comes from one of the leading cloud computing platforms – Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS)

• Service Description of the Company

  The AWS Device Farm is an app testing service that allows you to test and interact with your Android, iOS, and Web Apps on multiple devices in one go and even reproduce the issues on a device in real time! This device would let you look at videos, screenshots, logs, and performance data to zero in on issues with the app and take care of them before the app is launched.

• Pricing Structure

  There are three levels being offered on this platform.

  1) $0.17/device minute, with first 1,000 minutes free

  2) Unlimited testing starts at $250/month

  3) Private device starts at $200/month

• Compatible Devices

  A total of 206 Android and Fire OS devices and 152 iOS devices.

#2 Firebase Test Lab for Android

This device that was earlier called the Google Cloud Test Lab has now been integrated into the Firebase development platform which has a bunch of other back end services that go a long way in supporting te mobile app development.

• Service Description of the Company

  Firebase Test Lab for Android offers infrastructure for testing Android apps based on the cloud. With a single operation, it is possible to initiate testing of an app across a whole wide range of devices and even wider range of device configurations. You have access to a Firebase console where you would have test results including logs, videos, and screenshots available to you. What makes it really a great device is that even if you have not written any test code for your app, the Test Lab has the ability to automatically exercise your app while looking for crashes.

• Pricing Structure

  Firebase Test Lab for Android comes in three different plans.

  1) Spark – for free but has limitations

  2) Flame - $25 per month

  3) Blaze – pay as you go model

• Compatible Devices

  They have a command line tool which would lead you to a whole list of compatible Android devices.

#3 Xamarin Test Cloud

Xamarin, that was acquired last year by Microsoft, enables cross platform app development using C# as the programming language.

• Service Description of the Company

  Xamarin lets you find bugs before you launch the app, by running automated tests on the devices being used by your customers. The device lets you test out every little thing that your users may do including pinching, swiping, double tapping, scrolling, or any other interaction. With Xamarin you can easily find problems with app performance on any operating system automatically with a step by step tracking of memory and performance. Well designed reports are delivered to you so that you know when your app would be ready to launch.

• Pricing Structure

  There are a great number of options that offer a variety of limitations & capabilities.

  1) Newbie - $99 a month

  2) Small Startup - $379 a month

  3) Growing Business - $799 a month

  4) Enterprise – where you need to contact the company to get a quote

• Compatible Devices

  Currently the device lists a total of 2,624 devices that run on iOS 8 to iOS 10 and a whole lot of Android versions from Honeycomb to Oreo.

#4 Kobiton

Some of the device clouds are offered only from within the feature laden app development and testing platforms. Kobiton comes from a startup by the name Kobiton Inc. & is based out of Atlanta. The device is all about device testing.

• Service Description of the Company

  The device, Kobiton is essentially a mobile cloud platform that helps the users carry out both, manual and/or automated testing on physical devices whether they are iOS or Android based.

• Pricing Structure

  There are three plans up for grabs here and they all come with a 15-day trial.

  1) Indie - $10 a month or $100 a year

  2) Team - $199 a month or $2,000 a year

  3) Growing Biz - $499 a month or $5,000 a year

• Compatible Devices

  A total of 160 devices are supported in a varying range of different families by this startup.

#5 Perfecto

Perfecto Mobile Ltd. offers a whole range of different ways of device testing and one of the more prominent ones among them is their Continuous Quality Lab. Perfecto also provides manual testing, test automation, mobile performance testing and real-device monitoring.

• Service Description of the Company

  Their Continuous Quality Lab helps you to organize your business easily by improving the digital experiences that identify it. They have 14 greatly secure data centers where thousands of real devices have been homed and which can be accessed from any browser and you can easily leave the actual device management in their expert hands. They actually save up millions for their customers simply by eliminating the manual testing.

• Pricing Structure

  They have three plans to offer their clients:

  1) Basic - $99 a month or $1,188 a year

  2) Advanced - $299 a month or $3,588 a year

  3) Enterprise - where you need to contact the company to get a quote

• Compatible Devices

  They are compatible with more than 10,000 devices including smartphones, tablets, and phablets.

#6 Sauce Labs

With Sauce Labs, they offer a whole range of services including mobile testing, including an open source automated testing platform, cross-browser testing, JavaScript unit testing, professional services, and a whole lot more.

• Service Description of the Company

  Sauce Labs let you test your mobile app across iOS & Android physical devices, emulators and simulators on their public cloud or even on dedicated devices on a private cloud. You can even run automated tests in order to speed up their release and carry out manual spot checking in order to identify the issues promptly. This means that you can easily access hundreds of different devices without having to go through the trouble of locating or maintaining all of them.

• Pricing Structure

  There are a lot of different plans that are available for you to choose from and there is a 14-day trial available for you.

  1) Manual - $29 a month

  2) Individual - $199 a month

  3) Expert - $399 a month

  4) Professional - $499 a month

  5) Small Team - $699 a month

  6) Enterprise - where you need to contact the company to get a quote

• Compatible Devices

  There are a total of 308 compatible devices including both iOS and Android devices.

#7 Experitest

SeeTestCloud is offered by Experitest Ltd. in both online and offline versions along with both, automated and manual mobile functional testing, and mobile performance testing tools.

• Service Description of the Compan

  It is only natural that you would have to release new applications quite frequently to stay relevant in the current economy. Experitest mobile cloud testing tools would introduce you to new devices and operating systems a lot faster, automate more tests, and enhances collaboration between different teams. This means that you can release apps that are better and faster to be released.

• Compatible Devices

  The online test cloud page lists a total of 56 devices including Fire HD devices, iOS devices, Android devices, Blackberry devices and more.