The advice would be that you should have automation testers or allow experts to start with an idea of the tool. After that initial learning curve, it would become much easier, like a piece of cake. Proper training is essential for success.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

I'd rate Ranorex Studio eight out of 10. It works well for us. We can quickly add service agents wherever we need to so we can run multiple scripts in parallel. It runs pretty strongly. As I said, it just doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a UFT, but then again, it's a fraction of the cost.

I have some advice for people thinking about using Ranorex. If they're looking at using multiple users, they should consider having their codebase in Bitbucket or something other than Ranorex's proprietary solution. When we first stood this up, they didn't have a feed. They didn't have APIs in Bitbucket or anything else. But now that they do, we would probably be looking to migrate all of our code to Bitbucket or some other repository, so our IT system backs everything up. The options are that or Ranorex's cloud-based solution.

The main advantage of Bitbucket is security. So, if your system goes down, you have copies of the system backed up somewhere else. All of our codebase across the organization is managed through Bitbucket and also backed up securely. So we have all our security protocols in place for there. Ranorex's repository plays well with other platforms so that we could use those scripts somewhere else. The only other way to do it is by running them, recording them off something else, and then going back in and re-coding where we need to code to make it work. It's not real friendly to work with multiple teams if you do a single instance setup. So, if you were an organization looking at multiple users, I would recommend looking at the right solution on how numerous teams could use the coding of it and the run-time elements of Ranorex.

Having a local reseller who already knows the product and can provide in-house training would be a fantastic solution and would make the learning curve a quicker process.

The transfer of knowledge from one person to another.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Like any other automation tools, first understand the application, identify the reusable components, define the automation framework, and start writing the scripts in Ranorex. Don’t directly start converting the test cases to automation test scripts without setting up the framework. Even if you directly convert test cases to automation test scripts when there are changes comes in the application it is easy to fix it in Ranorex than any other automation tools. Very user friendly tool.

The solution has good quality and functionality but I would not recommend it because of its unfamiliarity in the market. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Ranorex Studio does not require any maintenance but our software does.

My advice to others implementing this solution is for them to take it slowly, make sure to get everything right in the beginning, and then everything should be running smoothly.

I rate Ranorex Studio an eight out of ten.

I think it's a good tool, I would definitely, recommend it.

I would rate Ranorex Studio an eight out of ten.

The solution is easy to learn. I advise others to understand their business requirements before making the purchase decision. They can also opt for tools like Katalon.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten because of the complexity of C-Sharp language. They should include Python language instead.

I'm just a customer and an end-user.

I'd rate the solution at about an eight out of ten. The reason I give it an eight - and I have pretty high standards - is it's not something where I needed somebody to guide me through installing it and preparing it and preparing my workstation. It's pretty self-sufficient that way and that's the type of product I like where I'm not having to go back to the vendor constantly.

My main piece of advice is to understand your environment and what you require. And understand what you can automate your tests on and what you can't. You can spend a lot of time on this and end up with nothing after.

Skilled resources! I can’t push that point enough. You need at least one highly skilled resource to be responsible for the architecture of your framework as long term maintenance will be your largest cost, followed by actual implementation time.

A skilled resource can then help to transfer their knowledge across to less technical resources. Ultimately a good architect will aim to abstract the technical as much as possible to enable non-technical team members to also assist with the automation process. People ofter refer to this as a “script less” approach. Whilst this is nothing new, there is still a lot of contention around this topic, particularly from automation “guru’s” as generally speaking most framework still required a lot of coding, and “scriptless” frameworks simply don’t provide the flexibility of their coded counterparts.

I do believe however that it will become the way of the future and is achievable by continuous abstraction of functionality within your frameworks to eventually get to a point where hardly any code is required to “build your script”. Essentially only data is required to run your automated scenario. Not just data driven in a sense of providing your input/expected result data, but data driven at the object/automation artefact level. Also the more that you can automate the process of producing that data, the better. It is similar to the modularisation of code, only you’re not modularising data.

This is something we’ve achieved for our company. I refer to it as “Model Based Automation” as we use a model hierarchy for managing all of our application objects. A data dictionary as such. This model can be built manually, or automatically scraped from an application using rules. This has the hidden advantage of also enabling you to automatically track object interaction coverage across your application under test via automation. This has enabled us to reduce our code footprint from over 250,000+ lines of code to just 6,000, whilst automating most of what would usually be a manual process of producing code.

Once again however as you can see we’re now referring to frameworks, and not the tools themselves. Obviously building the frameworks themselves takes time and skill. The real skill is making the frameworks generic enough that they are no longer application dependant.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I would suggest you try to implement a use case with multiple concurrent test automation products, to find the right one for your needs. It’s good to compare various aspects of different products - element recognition consistency, recording reliability, reusability of test modules, comprehensiveness of support and documentation, and the quality of the community forum etc.

I rate Ranorex Studio a nine out of ten.

I would recommend reading through the user guide, the guide is very comprehensive and provides a lot of examples of best practises Buy Runtime Engine licenses for execution rather than full Ranorex Studio license. Make use of Cross Browser Testing as far as possible (Automate once and run on multiple browsers). Use variables and data fields that have consistent names (like $UserName and $Password). 

Use data-driven testing, which allows to run the same test over and over with different data while getting consistent and verifiable results. Use the data to feed and to validate the system. Create small and distinct tests and you can always combine them in the test case. By keeping the tests small and simple you decrease the overhead of maintenance. Don’t automate tests which are run only once, try to automated repetitive tests.

My advice for anybody who is considering Ranorex is that it is a powerful tool, it is far-reaching, and it works as advertised. In my opinion, it is one of the best tools available in the market.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Based on my experience, this would be my tool of choice for test automation. There are many out there but I have yet to find one that offers all of the features mentioned above in one package.

If you are looking for an automation tool that is easy to implement, easy to understand, and works with most of technologies on the market, Ranorex is the appropriate solution for you. So far I can only recommend this product.

Given the makeup and technical level of our entire team and the product we are developing. This was and continues to be a good fit.

Make sure it fits with your team goals and products. Consider the profiles of folk you will need to hire to implement and maintain the testing. There is a stigma with being in QA as opposed to being a developer, so you may implement a tool that is hard to hire for. Take for example Selenium, lots of QA want it on their resume because they can demand more compensation, the profile needed is that of a developer.

Sample results

My advice for implementation is to do a proof of concept first to ensure this product works for you.

Do your research, all products have their positives and negatives. Assemble a list of requirements, interview vendors and other users of the product, go through strenuous Proof of concept phase – evaluating and analyzing how well the product fits your current and future needs.

You need to have several windows environments for development. You can use Ubuntu or Mac for running tests inside AWS windows box, but development is better or native windows.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the product as an eight for what it does for us.

For those people in the market looking for an application testing solution, I would recommend evaluating the product and the type of projects you will need it for. I would recommend making an evaluation and comparison with other products to be sure that the needs for testing can be covered in the functionality of the Ranorex. The Ranorex is a studio, of course, so you will have lots of options to apply in ongoing test management and test automation. In my experience, those issues are all covered in Ranorex.

Dynamically changing application or a desktop application which is challenging to automate, blindly go for Ranorex.

Ranorex is a very good product, especially for testing Windows Forms applications but also companies with web applications and mobile applications will be very pleased by the product as it has also perfect UI recognition for these platforms. It’s also easy to learn for non-programming skilled people.

We are using the on-premises deployment model.

I would recommend people try the solution. They have a 30-day free trial that an organization could use to test them out.

Make sure to watch the webinar before implementing the solution, even if they are experimenting with automating. It will make everything easy to understand.  Ranorex has a lot of options which you need to understand and to optimize. You can't automate the optimization, which is why the webinar is so important. 

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

Try the free trial and have a look at the several demo videos.

My rating is based on the features I use. There are some other features of the product that I haven't touched yet because of the way the test automation is organized on the project I have been working on.

I would suggest using this product because even though it is not an open source solution, the benefits of using it are achieved based on the products price. I was a beginner when I started using this tool and got used to the tool in a very short amount of time so I started working actively very quickly.

It depends on the way the tool is used on the project, but either way, I personally think that the period the user needs to get used to the tool is very low because of the support that is offered through user guides and Ranorex forum or customer service.

It is reliable and fast. I've had no problems in the seven months I have used it.

It's excellent for desktop based applications (win forms), and the best for web based applications, with some instrumentation tricks on Flex/Flash based applications.

As a stand alone product Ranorex is quite useful. However, if you plan to implement and merge this with a project that is complex, it requires full automation, API integration, and has a large data set it can be arduous.

We have been employing Ranorex in the field of desktop PC application UI automation. In this particular area Ranorex proved to be a perfect choice. Unfortunately we could not gather any experience in the field of web application automation.

The best advice I can give is geared towards implementation. If you’re capable of writing your own test scripts, then I wouldn’t suggest using the Record/Playback feature at all, aside from maybe looking at the generated code module for help on starting a new test case. There are a lot more constraints that come with using the record/playback method, and you cannot easily implement conditional statements or parameters, like you would be able to in the code modules.

Go through the user guide and update your library files for your mobile automation process.

Check if all your components are recognized by Ranorex prior to buying.

Ranorex doesn't provide automation for Windows Mobile, and lacks some of the basic functions like table comparison etc. Although one can achieve this through C# or VB.net, it would be better if it provides the UI comparison. However, Ranorex uses power of C# to built a highly competitive Automation tool.

You should go for it and it will not let you down.

It is simple and stable solution.

My advice is to spend some time reading the user guide and interacting with teammates who have already used the tool so that things become straightforward when you use it. It is a good tool to perform user interface testing over a .NET product.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10 because of the expense of licenses and lack of simultaneous execution. It's limited to only one machine or computer.

My advice is to compare solutions. Two years ago there were very different options in the market. Compare Katalon Studios with Ranorex.