The 10 Best Quality Engineering Software Tools: A Complete Guide

The Best Quality Engineering Tools Shortlist

The focus on prevention over patches has given rise to an abundance of tools that facilitate quality engineering, ranging from collaboration and productivity tools to DevOps solutions, testing software, analytics tools, security solutions, and many more.

Here’s a shortlist of the best software to help with your quality engineering process:

1. 1.

   Appsurify TestBrain

   — Best for faster test feedback

   

2. 2.

   Tricentis Tosca

   — Best continuous testing automation platform for enterprise

3. 3.

   BugBug

   — Best low-code solution for startups & SMBs

4. 4.

   Inflectra Suite

   — Best holistic application testing product ecosystem

5. 5.

   SeaLights

   — Best enterprise quality governance and software risk scoring

6. 6.

   CucumberStudio

   — Best collaboration tool for behavior-driven development

7. 7.

   Katalium

   — Best open-source testing automation tool

8. 8.

   LinearB

   — Best software quality engineering tool for managing team health

9. 9.

   Apexon

   — Best for implementing test automation within your workflow

10. 10.

    Perforce Suite

    — Best software quality assurance suite for devops

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Software quality is a vitally important consideration for anyone in the business of developing apps, regardless of whether they’re geared towards consumers or businesses. 

In the US alone, the cost of poor software quality in 2020 was approximately $2.08 trillion, according to The Cost of Poor Software Quality In the US: A 2020 Report, published by Synopsys, in collaboration with the Consortium for Information & Software Quality (CISQ).

User expectations are higher than ever before, and this means that the more competitive your niche is, the more important it is that your software delivers on its promises. This is why it’s crucial to stay abreast of evolving quality methodologies such as quality engineering and make sure you’re using the best available tools for the job.

In this post, I’ll cover what quality engineering is, the difference between quality engineering (QE) and quality assurance (QA), and explore 10 top tools for quality engineering. 

For each tool, I’ll provide an overview, describe its use case, and provide pricing and free trial information. I’ll also break down some of the main types of quality engineering tools and provide some examples in each category.

What Is Quality Engineering (QE)? 

Quality engineering is a relatively new approach to promoting quality in software development in general and product development in particular. 

With the high cost of low-quality software, many companies are starting to take a more proactive and preventative approach to quality management throughout the entire development process (from idea to launch and beyond) rather than trying to fix bad quality software after it’s been shipped.

This more holistic approach aims to be more resource-efficient, saving software developers’ time and money while ideally resulting in shorter deployment cycles.

Quality engineering includes analyzing and evaluating the processes involved in the development of software in order to continuously improve quality and efficiency, and reduce waste. This commitment to quality extends beyond the product’s launch, feeding insights gained throughout the entire product development lifecycle into updates and future products. 

For more detailed information about quality engineering, read our blog, What Is Quality Engineering? 

What’s the Difference Between QA and QE?

The main difference between quality assurance and quality engineering is that QA takes a corrective approach to quality control, whereas QE takes a preventative approach by applying rigorous quality checks throughout each phase of the software development lifecycle.

The problem with the traditional quality assurance model is that finding and addressing quality issues after the fact is inefficient. This is because it often requires that aspects of the product be redone, leading to delayed launches and higher costs (and, frequently, hasty fixes that don’t always address the quality issues).

For a more detailed analysis of the difference between quality engineering and quality assurance, read our blog on the topic: Quality Engineering Vs. Quality Assurance: Everything You Need To Know.

Overviews Of The 10 Best Quality Engineering Software

Here’s a brief description of each of the quality control tools to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the interface.  

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10 Best Quality Engineering Software Summary

Types of Quality Engineering Tools

Let’s take a look at some of the different types categories of QE tools and how each of them addresses the needs of your product and team. I’ve linked out to further reading material where applicable. 

DevOps

DevOps tools seek to remove siloes in product development, encouraging collaboration between teams across the application lifecycle. This cross-functional collaboration is crucial to quality engineering methodologies as improved communication leads to better alignment and fewer errors and do-overs.  

Examples:

Testing

Testing tools enable quality engineering by allowing stakeholders to design and deploy tests throughout the application lifecycle, accelerating development while promoting quality. Tools such as testing automation and continuous testing tools flag risks early so that fixes can be deployed well in advance of the product going live.

Examples:

Analysis & Analytics

Analytics tools facilitate quality engineering by collecting and analyzing data to identify patterns and track metrics such as performance and efficiency. When paired with AI and machine learning, data analytics tools can have powerful capabilities for flagging risks and flaws as well as making predictive suggestions or even automatically implementing solutions.

Examples:

Infrastructure

Managed infrastructure services are increasingly popular as they help to ensure that applications have sufficient back-end capabilities to perform, sync, and scale as required, with minimal latency and downtime––and minimal maintenance required.

Examples:

• Cloud Service Management
• Database/Data Management
• Server Monitoring & Management Tools
• Mobile Network Emulation (like Android Emulation)

Related Read: LEADERSHIP IN TEST: A GUIDE TO INFRASTRUCTURE AND ENVIRONMENTS

Development

Development tools range from project and ticket management tools like Jira to code repository management tools, design, and modeling tools, code compilers, code editors, to testing and analysis tools––essentially anything that helps developers to design, build, test, and deploy quality software. 

Examples:

• Data Engineering Tools
• SQL Editor
• Software Design/Modeling Tool
• Code Profiling/Performance Checking

Collaboration & Productivity 

Collaboration and productivity tools power quality engineering by facilitating effective project management, scheduling, work division, and communication. This helps to ensure that projects run on schedule and on-spec and give project managers greater visibility into team health as well as risks that may impact timelines.  

Examples:

• Note Taking/Collaboration
• Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
• Agile Management
• Instant Messaging/Meetings/Collaboration
• Mind Mapping Tools

Security

Security tools or DevSecOps tools enable teams to embed security compliance protocols and vulnerability management throughout the software development lifecycle. Automation plays an important role in enforcing security standards and testing for and detecting vulnerabilities. 

Examples:

• Penetration Testing Tools
• Application Security Testing

Related Read: 6 MAIN PENETRATION TESTING TYPES TO UNCOVER VULNERABILITIES

Cloud-Based Services

Cloud-based services such as APIs make it easier (and faster) to roll out high-quality features or deploy tests without having to build everything from scratch. Whether it’s outsourcing your helpdesk or integrating a plug-and-play chat feature into your app, there are thousands of SaaS products available that can significantly improve your application quality and user experience without adding to your team’s workload.

Examples:

• Cloud Testing Service
• Help desk/service management

Utility

Utility software encompasses a wide range of tools designed to help analyze, configure, optimize or maintain computers to ensure optimal operation. Utility tools like remote desktop clients help to test how your software performs on different devices and operating systems and can be invaluable in troubleshooting and addressing mismatches between software requirements and system capabilities.

Examples:

• Remote Desktop Client
• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Terminal Emulator

What do you think of these quality engineering tools? 

Have you tried out these tools? Did they work for you? Do you have a useful tool that we missed? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to hear from you!

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If learning from an internationally renowned, award-winning software engineering consultant, author, and coach is your thing, here’s an article you should definitely check out: LEADERSHIP IN TEST: MANAGING PERFORMANCE TESTING.

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