{"id":2054,"date":"2024-04-22T16:51:33","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T16:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2025-10-23T18:25:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:25:25","slug":"no-qa-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/no-qa-team","title":{"rendered":"No QA team? 4 ways to automate your tests and what to consider"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Is your startup operating with no QA team and trying to figure out your options for improving software quality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps you\u2019re proactively thinking about your QA process before quality becomes a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or maybe quality issues have forced you to finally address your QA process (or lack thereof).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Either way, implementing end-to-end (E2E) automated software testing is almost always part of the answer. Compared to manual testing, it\u2019s cheaper and faster to execute, more reliable (humans get distracted and bored!), and is a better fit with modern DevOps pipelines featuring CI\/CD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But when you don\u2019t have a dedicated QA team, how do you make the transition from manual testing to automation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You have four different options, each with its own tradeoffs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Have your developers use open-source frameworks<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hire a QA engineer<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use low-code\/no-code tools<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Outsource QA<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In this piece, we explain the pros and cons of each option so you can make an informed decision for your software team \u2014 and get to a point where you\u2019re releasing fast, with confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The information we\u2019ll share is based on a decade of our team\u2019s experience in this market, plus surveys we\u2019ve run and hundreds of conversations we\u2019ve had with startup engineering leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_83 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/no-qa-team\/#1_Have_your_developers_use_open-source_frameworks\" >1. Have your developers use open-source frameworks<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/no-qa-team\/#2_Hire_a_QA_engineer\" >2. Hire a QA engineer<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/no-qa-team\/#3_Use_a_no-low-code_test_automation_tool\" >3. Use a no-\/low-code test automation tool<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/no-qa-team\/#4_Outsource_QA\" >4. Outsource QA<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/no-qa-team\/#Final_thoughts\" >Final thoughts<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1_Have_your_developers_use_open-source_frameworks\"><\/span>1. Have your developers use open-source frameworks<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One way to start automating tests is to have your devs do all the QA. In addition to unit testing, they write and maintain their own E2E tests in an open-source framework like Selenium, Cypress, or Playwright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This approach is easier on your budget than hiring a full-time specialist to manage these tests, but the costs show up in other ways. <strong>Specifically, you\u2019ll pay for it with less productivity from your expensive software developers and lower velocity in your release pipeline.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s painful and time-consuming for developers who have to dig around in automation code to maintain E2E tests instead of doing what they\u2019re incentivized to do, which is shipping code and new features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And they\u2019ll be doing a lot of test maintenance, because tests in these frameworks tend to be quite brittle. That means even small, non-functional changes to your app can break things in your test suite, requiring investigation and maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u201cWe have some Selenium tests. I\u2019m sure you guys are very familiar with just how painful and time-consuming it is to build Selenium tests. And so we don\u2019t build nearly enough of them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Startup CTO<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In fact, based on a recent survey of 600+ software developers and engineering leaders, 55% of \u200cteams using open-source testing frameworks spend at least 20 hours per week on <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/test-automation-maintenance\"><strong>maintaining automated tests<\/strong><\/a><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, contrary to what you might expect, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/ai-vs-open-source-test-maintenance\">using AI isn\u2019t correlated with saving any time on test maintenance<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"936\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-ai-vs-no-ai-1024x936.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2721\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-ai-vs-no-ai-1024x936.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-ai-vs-no-ai-300x274.png 300w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-ai-vs-no-ai-768x702.png 768w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-ai-vs-no-ai.png 1052w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>You\u2019ll also need to consider the financial and productivity costs of the tooling and infrastructure you\u2019ll need to provision and manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>3rd-party plugins to extend functionality (e.g., to get more detailed test results or to add visual validation to your tests)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Test management software to manage and organize your test suite(s)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Machines on which to run your tests, whether the machines are real or virtual. Want to run tests in parallel? You\u2019ll need more machines. Manage them yourself or pay for a 3rd-party test grid like BrowserStack or Sauce Labs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tl;dr<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Having your developers use open source test automation frameworks requires tradeoffs in productivity and velocity (and often, developer satisfaction). This approach tends to be an anti-pattern for startups interested in moving fast and keeping their engineers focused on delivering code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your goal is continuous delivery, you should consider another option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h.92nllwmtwi30\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"2_Hire_a_QA_engineer\"><\/span>2. Hire a QA engineer<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Hiring a QA engineer means adding a full-time headcount who applies specialized skills to writing tests and maintaining tests in an open-source framework. Hiring this specialized contributor allows your development team to execute faster, without the drag of E2E test management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plus, if you can find an experienced QA person as your first hire, they can implement a testing strategy and process, help you define quality metrics, and otherwise help you implement best-practice methodologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A good candidate integrates tightly into your dev team\u2019s workflows to keep releases moving as smoothly and quickly as possible. They\u2019ll develop a deep knowledge of your product, which allows them to be more efficient and effective. And, as part of the team, they\u2019ll have a sense of ownership and accountability that\u2019d be difficult to find in outsourced headcount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In short, finding the right QA engineering hire for your team can be a boon for both product quality and your peace of mind.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But can you afford it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The main drawbacks of hiring a QA engineer are the costs of your time, energy, and budget<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Time and energy costs<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Finding good people is hard \u2014 in QA or otherwise. In a survey of startup software engineers we ran, the number one response to \u201c\u200b\u200bWhat are the main challenges when it comes to hiring QA?\u201d was \u201cFinding good candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hiring can eat up a lot of time and energy for any hiring manager. \u200b\u200bA typical process involves writing and posting job descriptions, screening and interviewing candidates, negotiating, onboarding, training, and management. Once you decide to add headcount, it can take months before someone\u2019s adding value in that position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plus, managing a QA person creates a new type of labor for engineering leaders. For them, managing contributors from a non-engineering discipline requires a different set of knowledge and a different way of thinking. QA contributors have different goals, viewpoints, and communication styles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u200b\u200bBudget costs<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>If you do manage to find a good hire, you\u2019ll pay for the privilege. <strong>Publicly-available salary databases show that hiring an experienced QA engineer in the U.S. <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=qa+engineer+salary&amp;oq=qa+engineer+salary&amp;gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7MgYIARAuGEDSAQgyMjEwajBqMagCALACAA&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiWoaD--MSFAxV35MkDHY-ZAdAQ0MwKegQICBAE&amp;dlnr=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>tends to cost north of $100K<\/strong><\/a><strong>.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"278\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/qa-eng-salaries.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2059\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/qa-eng-salaries.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/qa-eng-salaries-300x83.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/qa-eng-salaries-768x214.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If a QA hire doesn\u2019t work out, that\u2019s an expensive mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Other hiring risks and costs<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s not the only risk when you <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/hire-qa-engineer\">hire a QA engineer<\/a>. There\u2019s also <em>single point of failure risk<\/em>, where the success of an entire function \u2014 in this case, quality assurance \u2014 depends on the continued contributions of a single person. If you lose your QA engineer, your test suite doesn\u2019t get updated and you lose whatever confidence you had in your test coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, you still have to pay the time, money, and velocity costs of using open source automation frameworks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The costs of inevitable bottlenecks caused by test maintenance. (Remember how over half of software teams using open-source testing frameworks 20+ hours per week keeping their automated test suites up-to-date?)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The costs of provisioning and managing additional tooling and infrastructure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tl;dr<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019ve got the budget and are comfortable with the risks, hiring a QA engineer to automate your tests and lead your QA process can be a winning move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don\u2019t have the budget or appetite for hiring, you still have reasonable options. The difference between hiring QA and hiring in some other categories \u2014 like HR or marketing \u2014 is that the market is full of practical alternatives for QA. (Specifically, the ones covered in this post.) There\u2019s less need to hire to solve challenges with QA than there is in other disciplines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, if hiring a QA engineer isn\u2019t for you, keep reading to learn about your other options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"3_Use_a_no-low-code_test_automation_tool\"><\/span>3. Use a no-\/low-code test automation tool<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The promise of no- and low-code tools is that anyone on your team can quickly create and automate tests without any technical expertise, at a low cost.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No- and low-code test automation tools can seem pretty compelling to engineering leaders who don\u2019t have the budget for hiring or outsourcing, don\u2019t want their software developers to get bogged down in open-source frameworks, and don\u2019t want to deal with managing test infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They think, \u201cWith a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/codeless-automation-testing\">codeless testing tool<\/a>, we don\u2019t need to hire an expensive QA engineer to automate our tests. Our devs can use the tool and move a lot faster than they can with open-source tools because it\u2019s low-code. Maybe we can even have our non-technical product managers help out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, broadly speaking, this is all true. But there\u2019s a catch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">You\u2019ll spend less time on maintenance using no-code tools, but the time spent is still consequential<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/state-of-test-automation-2024\">Our survey data<\/a> show that teams using no-code to automate their E2E tests spend a lot less time on test creation and maintenance than teams using open-source frameworks.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"913\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-nocode-vs-open-source-1024x913.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2723\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-nocode-vs-open-source-1024x913.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-nocode-vs-open-source-300x267.png 300w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-nocode-vs-open-source-768x685.png 768w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/time-spent-nocode-vs-open-source.png 1052w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>But even with the best no-code tools, test maintenance costs don\u2019t fall to zero.<\/strong> Someone on your team will still have to dedicate a number of hours per week to keeping your automated tests up to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s use our solution, Rainforest QA, as an example. Rainforest started as a self-service, no-code testing tool. Even though it\u2019s quite intuitive and easy to use (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/testimonials\">just ask our customers<\/a>), some of our Agile customers shipping fast and frequently found test maintenance to be a time-consuming burden. (Even though they were spending much less time on maintenance than they otherwise would in an open-source tool like Selenium or Cypress.)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In fact, when teams adopt no-\/low-code tools, they tend to underestimate the costs of maintenance.<\/strong> They think they\u2019re saving money by not hiring QA engineers, but their developers spend more time than expected keeping the test suite up to date. So they end up having to hire QA headcount to own test automation in these tools and to free up their development teams to focus on delivering code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s a big part of why we introduced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/test-automation-services\">done-for-you test automation services<\/a> \u2014 to take the distracting pain of test maintenance completely off your team\u2019s plate. (More on that in the next section.)<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"665\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/test-maintenance-team-time.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2392\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/test-maintenance-team-time.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/test-maintenance-team-time-300x222.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/test-maintenance-team-time-768x567.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n<div id=\"highlight-block_c1a8a29ae672e5afba9bf86b5932177d\" class=\"highlight\">\r\n    <p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">See how Push Security got time back for their developers by switching from a self-service, no-code tool to Rainforest QA\u2019s test automation services.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/case-studies\/push-security\">Read the case study<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Other common downsides of low- and no-code testing tools&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u201cLow-code\u201d doesn\u2019t mean \u201ceasy to use\u201d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Not all low- and no-code tools are created equal. Some, like Rainforest, are designed from the ground up to be intuitive. So anyone can jump in and quickly confirm or update its plain-English test scripts, no training required.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"666\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/test-steps-generated-with-ai.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2065\" style=\"width:500px\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/test-steps-generated-with-ai.jpg 666w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/test-steps-generated-with-ai-278x300.jpg 278w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 666px) 100vw, 666px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Test steps automatically generated in Rainforest QA based on a single prompt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Other tools, however, are quite complex and difficult to learn. Your team will spend more time trying to get things done with these tools, so look for one where it\u2019s easy to get things done quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"536\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/katalon-ui.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2064\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/katalon-ui.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/katalon-ui-300x161.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/katalon-ui-768x412.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Some low-code tools are quite complex, making them difficult to learn and use.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Some tools claim \u201ccodeless,\u201d but still require coding<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Some tools claim to be \u201ccodeless\u201d but still require you to code. Specifically, for any test step requiring even a bit of complexity, you\u2019ll need to use custom JavaScript. This excludes non-technical users from creating and maintaining anything but simple tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What you want is a simple tool that gives you the <em>option<\/em> to use code for certain situations, but doesn\u2019t <em>require<\/em> it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Most low-\/no-code tools test what a computer sees, not what your users see<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Most no-\/low-code tools \u2014 just like all open-source frameworks \u2014 interact with and evaluate what happens in the DOM. The DOM is the code behind what happens in the user interface (UI) of your web app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The DOM approach is a problem because it ignores the visual appearance of what happens in the UI of your app. That is, the approach of these tools ignores what your end users will experience in your app. Instead, they test a proxy for the user experience (i.e., the behind-the-scenes code), which often fails to accurately represent what users will see.&nbsp; \u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some tools offer visual validation through a 3rd-party plugin like Applitools, but in other cases you\u2019re stuck with DOM-based software testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Unlike many other tools, Rainforest takes a visual-first (not DOM-first) approach to interacting with and evaluating your app. It tests exactly what your users will experience.<\/strong> We use machine learning to simulate how a human QA tester would evaluate your app \u2014 if a visual change is so small that a human QA tester wouldn\u2019t notice or care, Rainforest will pass it, avoiding annoying false-positive test failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plus, our visual-first approach means you can test anything that appears on the screen of a Windows or Mac virtual machine, not just what appears in the browser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Many tools claim \u201cAI,\u201d but not all deliver on velocity<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In testing, \u201cAI\u201d should be considered a marketing ploy until it\u2019s proven to speed up the slowest parts of the automated testing pipeline: test creation and maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some AI-powered tools remove more of the creation and maintenance burden than others due to how thoughtfully they\u2019ve integrated the benefits of generative AI (genAI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/building-reliable-systems-out-of-unreliable-agents\">a novel, patent-pending approach<\/a>, test steps in Rainforest can automatically update themselves \u2014 or \u201cself-heal\u201d \u2014 to reflect intended changes to your app. This avoids some of the need for humans to intervene and spend time maintaining tests. To our knowledge, Rainforest is the only AI test automation platform where an entire series of test steps created with a genAI prompt can automatically update themselves when your app changes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Further, when your Rainforest tests run, if the system can\u2019t find an element based on its default identifier (e.g., a screenshot or DOM selector), the system will look for the element based on its auto-generated AI description (e.g., \u201cPricing\u201d roughly in the top middle of the screen).<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"688\" height=\"906\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/ai-generated-description.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2066\" style=\"width:500px\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/ai-generated-description.jpg 688w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/ai-generated-description-228x300.jpg 228w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 688px) 100vw, 688px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Rainforest uses up to three different methods to identify elements in your app, including an AI-generated description<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>This helps avoid annoying false-positive test failures and maintenance steps whenever you make minor, intentional changes to your app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tl;dr<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don\u2019t have the budget for hiring or outsourcing, no-code tooling can seem appealing. But if you\u2019ve never used these tools before, you\u2019ll almost certainly underestimate the amount of time-consuming test maintenance your team will need to do to keep your automated regression suite up-to-date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"4_Outsource_QA\"><\/span>4. Outsource QA<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Outsourcing could mean hiring a firm like Applause, or it could mean hiring individual contractors on Fiverr, Upwork, or similar platforms.We surveyed software engineers at startups that have outsourced QA, and they characterized outsourcing as <strong>a flexible and scalable way to get more testing done at an affordable cost<\/strong> (while freeing up coders to focus on shipping).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"738\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/outsource-qa-benefits-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2119\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/outsource-qa-benefits-3.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/outsource-qa-benefits-3-300x221.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/outsource-qa-benefits-3-768x567.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>While outsourcing is a faster and cheaper way to scale up your QA resources \u2014 relative to making a full-time hire \u2014 it comes with some notable drawbacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The biggest downsides of traditional QA outsourcing: communication and service quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The same survey also revealed the biggest challenges with QA outsourcing: communication issues and the (poor) quality of services delivered.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"578\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/outsource-qa-challenges-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2120\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/outsource-qa-challenges-3.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/outsource-qa-challenges-3-300x173.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/outsource-qa-challenges-3-768x444.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Communication issues<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The survey respondents cited two issues around communication: working across distant time zones and language barriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some software teams value around-the-clock testing coverage that comes with having testers spread across different time zones. But most startups don\u2019t like the negative impacts to velocity that come with overseas QA partners. When you have to wait overnight for a response to a request or question, it puts a serious bottleneck in the development process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And language barriers can make the problem even worse. What if the response you get from your outsourced QA contributors isn\u2019t clear, or maybe they didn\u2019t understand your request or question in the first place? (A survey respondent described it as \u201ca breakdown in understanding.\u201d) Then you have to wait yet another day \u200cfor a round of back-and-forth to complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Service quality issues<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, since one of the main value propositions of outsourcing is the relatively low price, <strong>outsourcing firms don\u2019t necessarily hire the most skilled or experienced people, but instead the most cost-efficient ones.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This might explain why our survey respondents described service quality issues including \u201cpoor work quality,\u201d \u201ca problem meeting deadlines,\u201d and \u201creporting things that weren\u2019t actually issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Traditional outsourced QA personnel don\u2019t have enough context<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>That last critique points to another issue reported in the survey: these distant QA contributors don\u2019t tend to join the software team\u2019s meetings or embed in the team\u2019s workflows, so <strong>they don\u2019t have the context necessary to meaningfully understand how the team\u2019s product works, let alone the team\u2019s priorities.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That means training and onboarding take longer, \u200ccontributors require more oversight and corrections, and the work itself isn\u2019t as useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You see these critiques \u2014 and others, including security issues \u2014 reflected when you ask these surveyed engineers to describe the benefits of hiring QA vs. outsourcing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"807\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/hiring-advantages-vs-outsource-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2121\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/hiring-advantages-vs-outsource-3.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/hiring-advantages-vs-outsource-3-300x242.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/hiring-advantages-vs-outsource-3-768x620.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h.hxo92fm6k2s2\">New QA outsourcing models address the issues with traditional outsourcing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In recent years, a new type of QA outsourcing model has emerged. It aims to deliver the benefits of traditional QA outsourcing (cost and scalability), without all the downsides (issues with communication, service quality, and context).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two main companies offering this new model are QA Wolf and Rainforest QA. (See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/qa-wolf-alternatives\">all the best QA Wolf alternatives<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At Rainforest QA, we dedicate one or more experienced Test Managers to your account to take test creation and maintenance completely off your team\u2019s plate, allowing your devs to focus on shipping. Pricing starts at a quarter of the cost of hiring an experienced QA engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Here are some of the ways Rainforest QA\u2019s <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/test-automation-services\"><strong>test automation services<\/strong><\/a><strong> are different from a traditional QA outsourcer.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Context<\/strong>: Your Test Managers are dedicated to your account so they can deeply learn about your product and priorities. They embed in your workflows and comms tools (like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Jira) and end up feeling like a part of your team.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Service quality<\/strong>: These QA professionals have each worked with us and our platform since at least 2017, and have been highly rated by other customers.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Communication<\/strong>: For efficient and effective communication, your assigned Test Managers work in or near your time zone and speak fluent English.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>You just tell them what you want tested, and they take care of the rest, including screening any test failures. All the work happens in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/no-code-test-automation\">Rainforest\u2019s all-in-one, no-code testing platform<\/a>, so anyone from your team can quickly verify and even update your test coverage. There are no black boxes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u201cThe fact that [our Test Manager] is very specialized, very efficient, knows Rainforest incredibly well, and knows our product incredibly well means she can just focus on this one area and do an incredibly good job of it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/case-studies\/ynab\"><em>Robert Guillaume, QA Manager at YNAB<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tl;dr<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Outsourcing is an affordable and flexible way to ramp up your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/qa-strategy-guide\">startup\u2019s QA<\/a> resources, at least relative to hiring full-time contributors. The trick is to use an outsourcing partner who won\u2019t undermine your velocity and confidence with communication issues, service-quality issues, and open-source frameworks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Final_thoughts\"><\/span>Final thoughts<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When you\u2019ve got no QA team, we\u2019ve specifically designed Rainforest to have the big upsides of your other QA options, without their big downsides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It\u2019s a lot more affordable than hiring, starting at a quarter of the cost of hiring a QA engineer in the U.S.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It\u2019s designed to avoid the communication and service-quality downsides of traditional QA outsourcing<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It takes time-consuming test creation and maintenance completely off your plate, so your devs can focus on shipping<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It includes all the features and infrastructure you need to manage your test suites, run them massively in parallel, and get detailed test results for easy debugging<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We even offer exploratory testing services to find bugs off the \u201chappy paths\u201d covered by your automated tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re looking to solve QA for your startup, we invite you to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/talk-to-sales\">talk to us<\/a> about how we can help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don&#8217;t have a QA team? Explore the pros and cons of five options for automating your end-to-end tests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-automation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":54,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3349,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions\/3349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}