BrowerStack offers a total replacement (and huge upgrade) over VMs or a device lab.
September 18, 2020
BrowerStack offers a total replacement (and huge upgrade) over VMs or a device lab.
Score 10 out of 10
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Overall Satisfaction with BrowserStack
In years past, I would participate in and maintain a "QA Lab," where we'd have to keep a room full of assorted mobile phones, tablets, laptops, etc., all so that we could test our SaaS product on the same platforms that our users were on. This was both essential and a total disaster; it was expensive and fraught and time-consuming, but it was our only reliable way to reproduce and fix issues that customers reported on a wide assortment of devices.
BrowserStack replaces that completely. Their supported platforms are so broad that we can consistently find the platform we need to test and reproduce the customer's issue. A single subscription to BrowserStack replaces AN ENTIRE ROOM and THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF EQUIPMENT, and beyond that, it's faster and easier to use as a developer or tester.
And then there's Internet Explorer. As more and more devs have switched to using MacBooks as their development environments, being able to test in IE has always been a chore. Many devs either keep auxiliary machines with Windows, or use VMs for testing. Again, BrowserStack solves this completely and more strongly than having and maintaining local environments.
If you're building a SaaS app, BrowserStack is in my view an essential part of the development toolkit.
- Testing on assorted mobile devices
- Testing on Internet Explorer, when otherwise you don't have access to Windows
- Testing on Safari, when otherwise you don't have access to OSX
- It can be a challenge to use it when you're accessing it from within a corporate firewall. In my view, this is the Firewall's problem, but anything that BrowserStack can do to ease that pain will expand its ability to be useful in more locked-down companies.
- Directly saves money that would otherwise be spent on VM licenses (VMWare, Parallels, etc.)
- Directly speeds software development by making it faster and easier for developers to test their code
- Directly speeds and strengthens QA team velocity by allowing them to more rapidly test and reproduce issues
My alternatives have been DIY:
- Emulate the different environments yourself usings like VMWare or Parallels
- Have physical equipment to test on
These approaches used to be essential, but take a lot more effort and cost to provision and maintain than BrowserStack does. These days I don't miss my device lab or VMs at all--BrowserStack all the way.
Do you think BrowserStack delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with BrowserStack's feature set?
Yes
Did BrowserStack live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of BrowserStack go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy BrowserStack again?
Yes