What Is Continuous Testing?

Continuous testing is the practice of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release. It spans unit testing, functional testing, integration testing, performance testing, security testing, and more — all triggered automatically as code progresses through CI/CD stages.

Key capabilities to look for in a continuous testing platform include:

• Integration with CI/CD servers (Jenkins, Azure DevOps, TeamCity, etc.)
• Test case creation and management
• Service virtualization and test environment simulation
• Test data management
• Performance and load testing
• Mobile and cross-browser testing
• Reporting, analytics, and dashboards

Continuous Testing Tools and Platforms

The following tools represent a cross-section of the continuous testing market, covering everything from full ALM suites to specialized load testing and mobile device clouds. Descriptions are based on vendor-published capabilities.

Tricentis Tosca

Tricentis Tosca is a dedicated continuous testing platform designed to keep pace with Agile and DevOps delivery cycles. It focuses on model-based test automation, which reduces test maintenance overhead compared with script-based approaches. Tricentis claims high test automation rates for enterprise teams and provides integrations with common CI/CD toolchains.

Sauce Labs

Sauce Labs provides a cloud-based platform for automated testing of web and mobile applications. Tests written in any language or framework using Selenium or Appium can be executed against a large inventory of browser and device combinations. The cloud model removes the overhead of maintaining an in-house device or browser lab, and the platform is optimized for use in CI and CD environments with an emphasis on security, reliability, and scalability.

Parasoft

Parasoft provides a broad suite of testing technologies targeting complex, connected applications. Its platform combines static analysis, runtime analysis, unit testing, functional testing, API testing, and service virtualization under a single umbrella. Developer-facing tools, manager reporting, and executive dashboards make it suited for organizations that need traceability from code to compliance. Parasoft explicitly supports Agile, continuous testing, DevOps, and embedded/IoT development scenarios.

CA Technologies (now Broadcom)

CA Technologies offered an integrated continuous testing suite covering test environment simulation, automatic test case creation (including generation from requirements), on-demand test data management, and SaaS-based performance testing. The platform included orchestration to automatically promote applications through pipeline stages based on test pass/fail gates, and integrated with open-source tools such as JMeter, Jenkins, Selenium, and Appium. CA Technologies was acquired by Broadcom; these products may have been rebranded or consolidated since the original publication of this article.

IBM Rational Test Tools

IBM’s continuous testing portfolio for Agile teams included UI and integration test automation, performance testing, and service virtualization. Key products mentioned at the time included IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server, IBM MobileFirst Platform Quality Assurance, and IBM Rational Test Workbench. These products have evolved significantly; refer to the current IBM documentation for up-to-date product names and capabilities.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services (now Azure DevOps)

Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) was Microsoft’s cloud-hosted DevOps service offering Git repositories, Agile planning, build automation for Windows, Linux, and macOS, cloud load testing, CI/CD pipelines, and application analytics. VSTS has since been renamed Azure DevOps Services and continues to serve as a full-featured DevOps and continuous testing hub with broad third-party integrations.

JetBrains TeamCity

TeamCity is a CI/CD server from JetBrains. It provides real-time build feedback, integrates with major version-control systems, issue trackers, IDEs, and cloud services, and requires minimal configuration to get running. While TeamCity is primarily a CI/CD server rather than a test-authoring tool, it plays a central orchestration role in continuous testing pipelines by triggering and reporting on automated test runs.

Neotys NeoLoad

Neotys produces NeoLoad, a load and performance testing platform, alongside NeoSense for performance monitoring. The combination is aimed at enabling development, QA, and operations teams to collaborate on performance requirements and continuously validate application responsiveness as new features are released.

Synopsys Software Integrity Platform

Synopsys focuses specifically on security and quality testing within the SDLC. Its Software Integrity platform includes static analysis (SAST), software composition analysis (SCA) for open-source risk, protocol fuzz testing, and interactive application security testing (IAST) for web applications. It is targeted at organizations that need to embed security testing continuously rather than treating it as a release-gate activity.

QASymphony (now Tricentis qTest)

QASymphony offered qTest as a test case management solution integrating with popular development tools. Additional products in its portfolio included qTest Pulse for DevOps continuous testing, qTest eXplorer for exploratory testing, and qTest Scenario as a JIRA add-on for Test-First methodologies. QASymphony was subsequently acquired by Tricentis.

Appvance Unified Test Platform (UTP)

Appvance UTP positioned itself as a unified platform for creating, running, and analyzing tests — covering unit, functional, performance, and security testing — with codeless and multi-language test authoring options. Its design goal was to consolidate separate testing tools into a single workflow for continuous delivery teams.

Applause

Applause provides crowdsourced and in-the-wild testing services rather than a self-service automation platform. Its model gives teams access to a large global community of professional testers across real devices and geographic regions, covering functional, exploratory, and usability testing across the full application lifecycle.

Rainforest QA

Rainforest QA combines an AI-powered platform with a crowdtesting model, targeting teams that want to run regression, functional, and exploratory tests at the speed of development without writing large volumes of test code. It supports web and mobile testing scenarios.

Mobile Labs deviceConnect

Mobile Labs provided enterprise-grade on-premises and hosted mobile device clouds under the deviceConnect brand. The platform offered secure access to a managed inventory of real mobile devices for developers, test engineers, and support teams, supporting automated continuous integration, DevOps workflows, and both automated and manual app, web, and device testing.

Rogue Wave Klocwork

Rogue Wave Klocwork is a static code analysis tool that detects security, safety, and reliability issues in real time as developers write code. By integrating directly into the developer workflow and CI pipeline, it surfaces issues at the earliest possible stage rather than during a separate QA phase.

TechExcel DevTest

TechExcel DevTest is a quality-management solution for development and QA teams covering the full testing lifecycle: test case creation, planning, execution, defect submission, and resolution. Related products in the TechExcel suite included DevSuite for ALM, DevSpec for requirements management, and DevTrack for task management.

LogiGear TestArchitect

LogiGear TestArchitect uses a keyword-driven, no-coding approach to test authoring, enabling teams to create, maintain, reuse, and share large-scale automated tests for desktop, mobile, and web applications without deep scripting expertise.

Progress Test Studio

Progress Test Studio is a test-automation solution addressing functional, performance, and load testing. It aims to improve test coverage and reduce the number of defects that reach production by enabling teams to automate more tests efficiently.

SOASTA (now Akamai mPulse)

SOASTA’s Digital Performance Management platform combined five technologies: mPulse real user monitoring (RUM), the CloudTest platform for continuous load testing, TouchTest for mobile functional test automation, a Digital Operation Center (DOC) for unified performance visibility, and a Data Science Workbench for analysing web and mobile user performance data. SOASTA was acquired by Akamai; mPulse is now an Akamai product.

Tasktop

Tasktop focuses on value-stream integration rather than test execution itself. Tasktop Sync provided automated, enterprise-grade synchronisation across disparate lifecycle management tools, giving visibility and traceability across the entire development and delivery lifecycle. Tasktop Data collected real-time cross-tool lifecycle data for project health analytics. Tasktop was acquired by Planview in 2022.

Orasi

Orasi is a testing services and solutions provider covering test management, test automation, enterprise testing, continuous delivery, monitoring, and mobile testing.

Choosing the Right Continuous Testing Tool

No single tool covers every continuous testing need. In practice, most DevOps pipelines combine several tools — for example, a CI server (TeamCity or Azure DevOps), a functional test framework (Selenium or Appium), a cloud device grid (Sauce Labs), and a performance testing tool (NeoLoad). When evaluating options, consider:

• Pipeline integration: Does the tool have a native plugin or REST API for your CI/CD server?
• Test types covered: Unit, functional, API, performance, security, exploratory?
• Maintenance overhead: Script-based, model-based, or keyword-driven authoring?
• Reporting and traceability: Can results be linked back to requirements and user stories?
• Scalability: Cloud-based execution vs. on-premises grid?
• Vendor viability: Several tools listed here have been acquired or rebranded since 2017.

Note: This article was originally published in April 2017 and sourced from SD Times. Several of the companies and products listed have since been acquired, renamed, or discontinued. Verify current product names and availability directly with vendors before making purchasing decisions.