Manual Testing vs. Automation Testing
Manual Testing
It's the process of verifying and validating the software without the help of any tools and all the required testing is done manually and performed by human beings.
A prerequisite to do this type of testing is to have a functional understanding of the software.
Manual testing is divided into three categories:
White-Box
Black-Box
Grey-Box
Automation Testing
It’s a process of performing testing using automation tools or testing is performed automatically with the input we supply.
A prerequisite to do this type of testing is to have test cases that are written while performing manual testing. These test cases are further analyzed and based on priority it’s automated using any automation tool. Once the test case is automated human efforts are not required to perform this type of testing.
However, there are several factors that need to be taken care of before and during automation testing.
Manual Testing vs. Automation Testing: Key Difference
| # | Aspects | Manual Testing | Automation Testing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Test Scripting | Manual Test Engineer will write the test script manually. | Automation Test Engineer will write the test script programmatically or use any modern approach of Low-Code automation. |
| 2 | Test Data Preparation | Manual Test Engineer will prepare the test data manually with different input combinations. | Automation Test Engineer will prepare the test data programmatically or use any 3rd Party Libary to generate the test data with different input combinations. Also, a large volume of test data can be generated using an automation testing approach |
| 3 | Test Execution | Manual Test Engineer will execute each test case manually. | Automation Test Engineer will execute each test case automatically. Note that there are solutions available to even schedule the test execution. |
| 4 | Test Verification | Manual Test Engineer will execute and compare the results manually which is time-consuming. | Automation Test Engineer will execute and compare the results automatically and this process is faster. Note that there are several libraries available to do the comparison. |
| 5 | Test Results | Manual Test Engineer will record each result manually which is time-consuming and error-prone. | Automation Test Engineer will record each result automatically which takes less time. Note that modern test reporting tools maintain the historical data to further analyze the results. |
| 6 | Test Scheduling | Auto scheduling is not possible. | Auto scheduling is possible using CI/CD tools. |
| 7 | Time-Saving | The execution process is time-consuming and when there is an iteration of the test required then it takes even more time. | Execution time is less and due to parallel execution can be changed drastically. |
| 8 | Programming Knowledge | No programming knowledge is required. | Based on the tool selection you need to have programming knowledge to develop the test script. Note that modern Low-Code Automation tools have reduced this effort drastically. |
| 9 | Investment | No tooling cost, it's all human resources. | Based on the need for some time you have to pick commercial tools which involve cost. |