Best Beta Testing tools that help you build mobile apps

Beta testing mobile apps involve handing over to a specific set of actual users to utilize the app for a particular timeframe & give suitable feedback. Beta testing derives end-user input and helps app development companies decide if an app is ready to launch in the market or not.

Here is a list of the best beta testing tools to analyze an application before it hits the market or when a new feature is added.

TestFlight

Credits: 9to5 Mac

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Test Flight is a unique beta testing tool for iOS mobile apps that uses Fastlane to deploy apps to beta testers. Just a single command line allows iOS developers to deploy the app to beta testers, with TestFlight.

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• Once the development company submits the build for review on TestFlight, they can add external testers, or even share a public link.
• Developers can create diverse groups and assign different builds to assorted groups with the Test Flight.
• Being an official tool managed by Apple it emulates a production-like environment. It simplifies the distribution process of sending the apps to beta testers, allowing testers to add notes to provide feedback.

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HockeyApp (Visual Studio App Center)

Credits: MSPowerU

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HockeyApp, soon to be Visual Studio App Centre is a popular tool for beta testing and app distribution. Large enterprises that develop numerous apps prefer to use ‘HockeyApp’.

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• The platform supports multiple other platforms like Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows phone, also React Native, Xamarin along Unity. 
• It supports crash analytics as well as app analytics, along with tester management and notification features. App companies can manage groups of beta testers from a centralized Dashboard with the HockeyApp.
• Companies can share the link to download the apps with the Beta testers, and the mobile apps can be installed just by clicking the URL through the HockeyApp.

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UserExperior

A developer’s favorite, UserExperior, is another beta testing tool that helps businesses access mobile apps with actual users pre-launch. The innovative tool offers Session recordings that help companies to record every micro-interaction a user makes once he/she opens the app until he leaves the interface.

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• It also supports Heatmaps, a powerful UX Analytics tool that releases graphical representations depicting where the users have clicked, scrolled through, hovered mouse, on a given page.
• UserExperior supports all platforms including, iOS, Android, Xamarin, and React Native. Supporting platforms is not all, it only takes 5 minutes to connect it to your app.
• One of the most financially viable options in the market available for beta testing. It’s Free Forever Software, you don’t need to pay anything to start beta testing.
• Being one of the very few software out there that is free with all the features loaded including collaborative processes, it is perfect for anyone involved in the app development process.

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99Tests

Credits: 99tests

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All mobile app businesses realize that UI and UX are essential factors when it comes to curating a superior app experience for app users. 

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• 99 Tests, a quintessential beta testing tool, connects mobile apps with crowdsourced bug checkers to ensure that the app product is ready for market.
• It allows product owners the ability to scale their testing efforts and enjoy on-demand access to a quality team. 99Tests also has a user-flow feature that depicts the way a user navigates through the mobile app.

• The best thing about 99Tests for beta testing is the way in which it allows users to interact with the app in an unhindered manner.

• 99Tests is an easily integrable tool into iOS as well as Android mobile apps. 

• When used for beta testing, it can showcase how a user goes about navigating the app making it more insightful than other tools that just provide feedback and conventional app analytics.

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Test Fairy

Credits: Testfairy

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TestFairy is a popular beta testing tool. 

• It provides a complete video of the app navigation process and the way a user uses the functionality on the device. Test Fairy helps developers figure out how actual users use the mobile app. 
• Test Fairy comes well integrated with bug-tracking platforms such as GitHub, JIRA, Bugzilla, and Trello. Test Fairy SDK helps with both native & hybrid app development platforms. 
• It simplifies testing apps on a large scale, showing exactly what was done, and what went wrong on the user’s end. 
• TestFairy shares the details of the beta test in the form of a video that includes details of CPU, memory, GPS, network, and much more. 
• It also facilitates log and crashes recording of the mobile app testing session. TestFairy SDK can be integrated into the app to enable features like crash reporting. 
• Businesses are waiting for features like integration with other CI/CD services, building logs, crash reports, etc. 

Conclusion

Success in the app world is not defined by just a shorter time to market, it also depends on other factors like security, reliability & stability offered by an app to its end-users. Beta testing mobile apps ensure that the developers have built an app that passes with flying colors in terms of quality, functionality, compatibility, usability, performance, and other characteristics in the mobile app.