Katalon Store
Katalon Store is a marketplace provided by Katalon, a software company known for its automation testing solutions. The Katalon Store offers a variety of plugins, integrations, and other extensions that enhance the functionality of the Katalon Studio platform. These extensions are developed both by Katalon and third-party developers, and they cover a wide range of capabilities, such as integrations with popular tools, additional testing functionalities, and reporting enhancements. Users can browse the Katalon Store to find and install the extensions that best suit their testing needs, thereby extending the capabilities of Katalon Studio to better fit their requirements. Having all the Katalon Studio features and products, it’s time to look into its strong and weak sides.
The Katalon Store offers several benefits for testing teams and individuals:
Extended Functionality: The store provides access to a wide range of plugins and extensions that enhance the functionality of Katalon Studio. These extensions cover various aspects of the testing process, such as test case management, reporting, integration with other tools, and support for additional technologies.
Customization: Users can customize their testing environment by selecting and installing only the plugins and extensions that they need. This allows teams to tailor Katalon Studio to fit their specific requirements and workflows, improving efficiency and productivity.
Integration with Third-Party Tools: Many plugins in the Katalon Store enable integration with popular third-party tools and platforms commonly used in the software development and testing ecosystem. This includes integrations with version control systems, issue tracking systems, CI/CD pipelines, and more, facilitating seamless collaboration and automation across the development lifecycle.
Enhanced Reporting: Some extensions available in the Katalon Store offer advanced reporting capabilities, allowing users to generate comprehensive and customizable reports for test execution results. These reports can provide valuable insights into the quality of the software under test and help stakeholders make informed decisions.
Community Contributions: The Katalon Store is not only curated by Katalon itself but also allows contributions from the testing community. This means that users can benefit from a diverse range of plugins and extensions developed by both Katalon and third-party developers, leveraging the collective expertise and experience of the testing community.
Overall, the Katalon Store serves as a valuable resource for testing professionals looking to enhance their testing processes, streamline workflows, and improve the quality of their software products.
Advantages of using Katalon Studio:
Even though Katalon Studio is a relatively new tool, it has already gained sizeable popularity and was even named 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice — and for good reason. Let’s see what its main advantages are.
Katalon Runtime Engine:
The Katalon Runtime Engine (KRE) is a component of the Katalon Studio ecosystem that enables users to execute automated tests created with Katalon Studio in various environments. It provides a command-line interface (CLI) for running tests, making it suitable for integration with continuous integration (CI) systems, scheduling test executions, and running tests on remote machines or in headless environments.
The users can schedule and execute automation scripts in Katalon Runtime Engine (KRE) is the Katalon Studio add-on in console mode and CLI (command-line interface) mode. Various scenarios exist for KRE implementation. This tool is an automation tool which basically came into existence in January 2015 with a Selenium-based engine.
Katalon is basically designed to create and reuse automated test scripts for UI without coding. The automated tests of UI elements, including pop-ups, iFrames, and wait-time can run on Catalan Studio. The tool can be used on various OS like Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.
In October 2019, Katalon Studio was released as free version. Later a newer version of Katalon Studio Enterprise version as well as Katalon Runtime Engine with many new features added in it were introduced to provide customised options for different needs.
Katalon’s main advantage is its ease of installation and its integrations with many other tools compared to Selenium tool. Katalon has two different scripting interfaces for users with different programming skills. This means that testers with limited technical knowledge can use a simpler user interface that doesn’t require writing code.
The mode for more proficient users has access to scripting with syntax highlighting, code suggestion, and debugging. Katalon Studio supports local and remote testing, parallel and sequential testing. It runs on Groovy (Java) scripting language.
This solution has a quick setup and a number of pre-installed templates that allow repeating some testing patterns. Katalon Studio is a cross-browser testing tool. It can be used for Web, mobile, Windows desktop, and API testing. These solutions go with analytics and recording
Overall, the Katalon Runtime Engine complements Katalon Studio by providing a flexible and scalable solution for executing automated tests across different environments and scenarios. It enhances the efficiency and reliability of the testing process, ultimately helping teams deliver high-quality software products.
API testing:
Main features of this module are code auto-completion, code inspection, code snippet, references, and debugger. The software supports all types of REST, SOAP/1.1 and SOAP/1.2 requests and multiple data sources (XLS, XML, databases with dynamic mapping to maximise test coverage).
The tests from such API testing can be imported in API testing mode of Katalon. It can auto-format and search for artifacts.
Web testing
Katalon offers a complete web testing solution with inbuilt Continuous Delivery/Continuous Integration and DevOps integrations. A smart XPath location mechanism and a many of the report generation options are provided. It also allows for customising execution workflow and running it automatically.
Mobile testing:
The mobile testing component of the tool can be used to test mobile Web, native iOS, Android apps, and hybrid apps. By integrating with Appium, a test automation tool for mobile applications, the testing for the latest mobile platforms and devices is possible without additional installations. With cross-environment execution capabilities, mobile app tests can be executed locally and remotely with real devices, simulators, or cloud-based services.
Questions
1. What is Katalon tool? Explain.
2. What are advantages of tool?
