10 ms·

Launch HN: Preflight (YC W19) – Better automated testing for web apps

29 points by mesadb 5y ago

au-arms 5y ago
Love the activity in this space. We are on the lookout for a tool like this with built in runtime performance monitoring (frame jank, composited layer size, long tasks, component render times, etc). Would happily pay for a service that could do so.
mesadb 5y ago
Hi HN! It’s Mustafa. I’m the founder of Preflight (https://preflight.com https://preflight.com). Preflight is a no-code tool that automates manual web app testing. It lets everyone test the product by simply recording actions in the browser with a Chrome extension. Here’s a demo video: https://www.loom.com/share/4b09462bf52942e28b0dc71c9c0c319a https://www.loom.com/share/4b09462bf52942e28b0dc71c9c0c319a. I was the first engineer at ShipBob and ended up hiring over 40 engineers. We had a lot of UI issues after we grew beyond a team of 5 or so. With all the engineers adding new code to the existing code, everything started to break. That's when we started writing Selenium tests. I and several other engineers wrote 100 Selenium test cases in 2 months. But we were not able to maintain them in 3- 4 weeks because we had other responsibilities, and our Selenium test cases soon went to trash. The problem with automated UI tests with Selenium or Cypress is that they depend on the internals of the design (e.g. via CSS and XPath selectors), resulting in tests that break frequently because of unrelated changes. When that happens, you either have to fix all the tests and run them again, or replace the broken automated tests with manual testing. Then I hired 2 QA engineers, they took 5 months to come up with 5% test coverage and we needed more testing so we couldn't add more to it and maintain those tests as well. These issues pushed me towards creating a tool for automated testing that could understand the context of the page—the way humans do, not the way browser engines do—and can adapt to changes based on each steps' context. So if the UI changes completely and the test is looking for a Password Input in a sign-up form or an Orders menu item in the menu, we will find it without any related selectors. As humans, we understand the page in terms of buttons, menus, headings, borders, and so on. I wanted to mimic that. On top of that we have implemented a way to understand navigations through these different elements with their context, again, as humans do. We call this Context-Awareness. It’s our secret sauce to adapt to the changes and also calculate what your test coverage is. Since we understand the context of each step, it’s pretty easy to see if, say, a given button is in the tests. Here’s a video that shows the Context Awareness aspect I just mentioned: https://www.loom.com/share/50426244253943e49906dd881e0fb7d7 https://www.loom.com/share/50426244253943e49906dd881e0fb7d7. You record your tests using our browser extension, and then we run them on a bunch of Windows 10 machines that access your web app over the internet and execute the tests you recorded. We’re working on adding Macs. (Fun fact: Selenium cannot handle more than 40 nodes. The first version of Preflight was depending on Selenium Grid and it stopped working when we wanted to add more than 40 machines to it.) We charge money based on how many tests you are planning to run. We don't want to limit you based on server time because it's not easy to predict how much server time your tests will take. So everything is based on test results. Anyone can sign up and start using Preflight in minutes after signing up at https://app.preflight.com/get-started https://app.preflight.com/get-started. Thank you for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts and help all of you with any of your QA needs!
infocollector 5y ago
Can you please add a pricing page to your website? Also, can one run these tests with an api key on ci/cd?
- mesadb 5y ago
  Hi, the pricing is tricky part in any startup. We have some smaller plans and bigger plans. It really depends on what your needs are. Absolutely, integrating with CI/CD is super easy. We have some integrations already with major CI/CD pipelines. You can find it right here after signing up: https://app.preflight.com/account/integrations https://app.preflight.com/account/integrations
  - kierenj 5y ago
    What are the prices for the various plans? :)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - mesadb 5y ago
      It's here now: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing - thanks everybody for the clear feedback.
  - dubcanada 5y ago
    This is the wrong mindset, it does not depend on what my needs are. It depends on what you can offer me. My needs are meaningless, maybe I need it to also monitor uptime. Are you going to build that un-needed featured because I need it. It should be about what you can offer, and I can determine if that fits my needs.
beingflo 5y ago
I'm actually in the market for a product like this right now. But I genuinely don't understand why you wouldn't publish your pricing, that's an immediate no-go for me. Just a couple of days ago I started trying checkly [1] and have been quite happy, although I didn't try their browser testing yet. What do you offer over other services like this? [1] https://www.checklyhq.com/ https://www.checklyhq.com/
- mesadb 5y ago
  If you sign up, and you should see the prices
  - runako 5y ago
    Coming here to second this. I am not signing up to find out how much it costs, and I am actively in the market for a tool like this. Why won't I sign up to find pricing? Because gaming pricing makes a bad impression and makes me think you will try to obfuscate other critical information once I become a customer and generally be a difficult vendor to work with. Nobody needs to add a difficult vendor, especially in a competitive category. Edit: there are 6 top-level comments on this post besides yours. 4 of the 6 are looking for pricing.
    - mesadb 5y ago
      I respect that. But If you don't have a serious pain point around testing and you want to miss the best option out there. It's fine by me. There are couple of other alternatives out there: reflect.run, rainforestqa.com, ghostinspector.com, mabl.com, testim.io. We don't obfuscate, we care deeply about our clients. I always say this. If Preflight doesn't add value you don't have to pay for it nor use it.
      - beingflo 5y ago
        I hope you take the critical comments here constructively, we just think that you're missing out on a lot of potential users by not being transparent with pricing. As the other comment points out, we've come to expect that no pricing page means sales contact etc., individual customers are typically not interested in that.
sandman83 5y ago
Any plans on integrating with Github / Github Actions at any point?
- mesadb 5y ago
  Hi, we have a webhook that can be triggered from Github PR's etc. If that's something you need would love to help if it's not clear.
notadev 5y ago
Selenium IDE allows recording/playback of actions via browser extensions as well, without having to figure out the XPath, etc., yourself. Preflight looks much nicer than Selenium IDE interface, but is it much more different in its function? Can you run Preflight on-prem or must the AUT be accessible to the Internet? Regarding the Context Awareness, is there any issue with working with React apps? If I renamed an item in the navbar, or changed the position of an element (thus changing the XPath), would CA be able to identify and workaround that? Questions aside, it’s a great idea and the app looks great.
- mesadb 5y ago
  Yes, it's almost similar to Selenium IDE. We capture more data like target screenshot and context of the element etc. We get rid of automatically generated IDs or classes. We can access to environments behind the VPNs. But it's hassle-free if it's accessible through the internet. Actually we also implemented Context awareness for SPAs with CSS Module to adapt to the changes. We are agnostic to HTML changes and if we can find the element we will update the selectors after the test is successful. Thank you very much for the kind words!
neeleshs 5y ago
Can it work with canvas based drag/drop apps? Would be very interested, if it can
- mesadb 5y ago
  Hi @neeleshs, we are actually about to launch that. We will use Computer Vision to find the elements and drag and drop. Would love to help you with that or drop you an email when we launch it. It should be live next week or so
  - neeleshs 5y ago
    Thank you! Will sign up
  - mesadb 5y ago
    Here is a quick overview of Computer Vision click if it's canvas. We automatically understand that for you. https://www.loom.com/share/efc779da15654f098b67c57772cec477 https://www.loom.com/share/efc779da15654f098b67c57772cec477 Here is the visual checkpoint (regression): https://www.loom.com/share/b9448ba5e76e410089be6840053a8596 https://www.loom.com/share/b9448ba5e76e410089be6840053a8596
claytongulick 5y ago
I actually need this too right now, but without a pricing page I just move along. I'm bombarded by vendors every day trying to "recapture" a sale, as part of an automated sales pipeline process. I rarely provide contact details prior to being able to: 1) understand the product, what it does, and whether it will work for me 2) understand the pricing and sla 3) understand the business continuity model I'd rather have a more difficult solution (selenium) that I know the above three points about than to get sucked into yet another sales pipeline.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mesadb 5y ago
  It's here now: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing
wesleyfsmith 5y ago
Seems really promising, but how does it work with browser extensions? For instance, I'm looking for something like this that will help me test my crypto app that uses metamask at various points through the app. Also, no public pricing page is a bit of a turn off, especially when I created an account and still couldn't find any pricing info.
- mesadb 5y ago
  Hi Wesley, you should be able to see the price on here now: https://app.preflight.com/account/billing https://app.preflight.com/account/billing. Sorry if we made a mistake It should be no problem with MetaMask. Edit: Also listened to everyone and put the pricing on the web page: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing
  - kanwisher 5y ago
    How can you interact with another browser plugin from a plugin, that doesn't seem to make sense
    - mesadb 5y ago
      I'm sorry I am a little confused. We use Chrome extension to record your Browser tests. (Not browser plugin tests)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
econnors 5y ago
how's this compare to datadog synthetics? https://docs.datadoghq.com/synthetics/ https://docs.datadoghq.com/synthetics/
- mesadb 5y ago
  They work with selectors in general. We understand the page structure and even though there is a UI change we adapt to it. They have a little bit more functionality at the moment but we should catch them soon.
endisneigh 5y ago
I don't understand the OPs attitude around publishing basic information without signing up. Here's the pricing for those who are curious: Starter - 300 tests/month $99 /mo Startup - 1,000 tests/month $300 /mo Competitors are cheaper and include more tests.
- mesadb 5y ago
  Yeap it's right here: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing (Edit: just added.) Which competitors? Where are they running the tests on? Do they adapt to changes and save your valuable time? Or charge small and run tests with selectors like: .wudfj289hf .a9dfh82hf .sadf98h which breaks each time you deploy?
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    > Yeap it's right here: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing pretty misleading for you to act like that page was already there. you just added it. your lack of transparency is pretty disturbing. EDIT: wow OP got flagged and deleted their original reply, lol. cheaper options (just YC, not counting non-YC) https://www.superadmin.so/ https://www.superadmin.so/ https://reflect.run/ https://reflect.run/ https://www.rainforestqa.com/ https://www.rainforestqa.com/
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - mesadb 5y ago
      Sorry - you're right of course - I was just scrambling to reply to everyone and didn't mean to leave a misleading impression. I've edited my comment to be clearer now.
  - motoxpro 5y ago
    Man, I know you don't care because you said "But If you don't have a serious pain point around testing and you want to miss the best option out there. It's fine by me." but you attitude in this thread totally turned me off and makes me feel like you might not be around that long if you don't have the humility to take feedback/respect others and I don't want to bet my company on it. i.e. you say "save your valuable time" but you at the same time say if you don't care enough to use your time to sign up to see the pricing then we don't want you. You changed it, I know. You totally could go on to be a huge company and that's great, but just not the people I want to associate with.
danr4 5y ago
Pricing: https://i.imgur.com/Hhv747C.png https://i.imgur.com/Hhv747C.png $99/mo 300 tests / month $300/mo 1000 tests / month Aside from hiding prices, the sign up process has another annoying dark pattern - you sign up, they prompt you to schedule onboarding call (only option, no other button), then if you click anywhere or wait a few seconds a "Continue to Dashboard" button appears. If you click it you have an "Are you sure?" button instead. Instant turn off.
- mesadb 5y ago
  Thank you for making my life easier. It's here now: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing We want to make sure we help you. Testing is not easy even though we try everything we can to make it easy.
  - gramie 5y ago
    Nowhere on your pricing page does it say that the prices are per month. My first assumption was that you had to keep paying as you ran tests, and would have looked elsewhere had I not read the correct information in this HN discussion.
    - mesadb 5y ago
      Hi, the pricing page was not up and I put it on after getting some feedback from the community. It's per month. It was a quick page. I'll update that part.
easton 5y ago
Why Windows/macOS and not Linux for the test runners? Chrome/Firefox runs just fine on Linux, and then you don't have to pay for licenses. (I suppose if you get one of those resale agreements with MS you wouldn't have to either as long as you bill the customer, but as the customer I don't care about what OS the browser is running on.)
- mesadb 5y ago
  Thank for your comment. I see your point. Linux is fine for functional testing. But we just want to test how your users use your app. Our end goal is to use keyboard and mouse on OS level. And adapt to the changes. Some of the functionality and fonts don't work on linux so it's a little tricky.
  - easton 5y ago
    Ideally the app shouldn't work differently based on what OS the browser is running on (especially since Chrome OS is more popular than macOS these days, and that's a Linux. Not to mention Android and iOS which behave differently too.). Most distros offer font packages that can get you the stock Microsoft fonts if you're missing those, although these days I think it would be safest for the server to serve any fonts that aren't on all three platforms by default. On Ubuntu, you can do `apt-get install -y ttf-mscorefonts-installer` to get them.
- depressedpanda 5y ago
  That's unfortunate. Even on GitHub -- owned by Microsoft -- Windows runners are twice the cost of Linux runners (macOS is 10x). Given that, the extra unnecessary cost is almost certainly pushed onto the customer.
  - mesadb 5y ago
    Yeah I didn't like that news as well. But most of the users are on MacOs and Windows. So we really want to test how your users use your app. We have plans on adding linux but it will take longer.

29 points by mesadb 5y ago

Love the activity in this space. We are on the lookout for a tool like this with built in runtime performance monitoring (frame jank, composited layer size, long tasks, component render times, etc). Would happily pay for a service that could do so.

mesadb 5y ago

Hi HN! It’s Mustafa. I’m the founder of Preflight (https://preflight.com https://preflight.com). Preflight is a no-code tool that automates manual web app testing. It lets everyone test the product by simply recording actions in the browser with a Chrome extension. Here’s a demo video: https://www.loom.com/share/4b09462bf52942e28b0dc71c9c0c319a https://www.loom.com/share/4b09462bf52942e28b0dc71c9c0c319a. I was the first engineer at ShipBob and ended up hiring over 40 engineers. We had a lot of UI issues after we grew beyond a team of 5 or so. With all the engineers adding new code to the existing code, everything started to break. That's when we started writing Selenium tests. I and several other engineers wrote 100 Selenium test cases in 2 months. But we were not able to maintain them in 3- 4 weeks because we had other responsibilities, and our Selenium test cases soon went to trash. The problem with automated UI tests with Selenium or Cypress is that they depend on the internals of the design (e.g. via CSS and XPath selectors), resulting in tests that break frequently because of unrelated changes. When that happens, you either have to fix all the tests and run them again, or replace the broken automated tests with manual testing. Then I hired 2 QA engineers, they took 5 months to come up with 5% test coverage and we needed more testing so we couldn't add more to it and maintain those tests as well. These issues pushed me towards creating a tool for automated testing that could understand the context of the page—the way humans do, not the way browser engines do—and can adapt to changes based on each steps' context. So if the UI changes completely and the test is looking for a Password Input in a sign-up form or an Orders menu item in the menu, we will find it without any related selectors. As humans, we understand the page in terms of buttons, menus, headings, borders, and so on. I wanted to mimic that. On top of that we have implemented a way to understand navigations through these different elements with their context, again, as humans do. We call this Context-Awareness. It’s our secret sauce to adapt to the changes and also calculate what your test coverage is. Since we understand the context of each step, it’s pretty easy to see if, say, a given button is in the tests. Here’s a video that shows the Context Awareness aspect I just mentioned: https://www.loom.com/share/50426244253943e49906dd881e0fb7d7 https://www.loom.com/share/50426244253943e49906dd881e0fb7d7. You record your tests using our browser extension, and then we run them on a bunch of Windows 10 machines that access your web app over the internet and execute the tests you recorded. We’re working on adding Macs. (Fun fact: Selenium cannot handle more than 40 nodes. The first version of Preflight was depending on Selenium Grid and it stopped working when we wanted to add more than 40 machines to it.) We charge money based on how many tests you are planning to run. We don't want to limit you based on server time because it's not easy to predict how much server time your tests will take. So everything is based on test results. Anyone can sign up and start using Preflight in minutes after signing up at https://app.preflight.com/get-started https://app.preflight.com/get-started. Thank you for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts and help all of you with any of your QA needs!

infocollector 5y ago

Can you please add a pricing page to your website? Also, can one run these tests with an api key on ci/cd?

mesadb 5y ago
Hi, the pricing is tricky part in any startup. We have some smaller plans and bigger plans. It really depends on what your needs are. Absolutely, integrating with CI/CD is super easy. We have some integrations already with major CI/CD pipelines. You can find it right here after signing up: https://app.preflight.com/account/integrations https://app.preflight.com/account/integrations
- kierenj 5y ago
  What are the prices for the various plans? :)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mesadb 5y ago
    It's here now: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing - thanks everybody for the clear feedback.
- dubcanada 5y ago
  This is the wrong mindset, it does not depend on what my needs are. It depends on what you can offer me. My needs are meaningless, maybe I need it to also monitor uptime. Are you going to build that un-needed featured because I need it. It should be about what you can offer, and I can determine if that fits my needs.

beingflo 5y ago

I'm actually in the market for a product like this right now. But I genuinely don't understand why you wouldn't publish your pricing, that's an immediate no-go for me. Just a couple of days ago I started trying checkly [1] and have been quite happy, although I didn't try their browser testing yet. What do you offer over other services like this? [1] https://www.checklyhq.com/ https://www.checklyhq.com/

mesadb 5y ago
If you sign up, and you should see the prices
- runako 5y ago
  Coming here to second this. I am not signing up to find out how much it costs, and I am actively in the market for a tool like this. Why won't I sign up to find pricing? Because gaming pricing makes a bad impression and makes me think you will try to obfuscate other critical information once I become a customer and generally be a difficult vendor to work with. Nobody needs to add a difficult vendor, especially in a competitive category. Edit: there are 6 top-level comments on this post besides yours. 4 of the 6 are looking for pricing.
  - mesadb 5y ago
    I respect that. But If you don't have a serious pain point around testing and you want to miss the best option out there. It's fine by me. There are couple of other alternatives out there: reflect.run, rainforestqa.com, ghostinspector.com, mabl.com, testim.io. We don't obfuscate, we care deeply about our clients. I always say this. If Preflight doesn't add value you don't have to pay for it nor use it.
    - beingflo 5y ago
      I hope you take the critical comments here constructively, we just think that you're missing out on a lot of potential users by not being transparent with pricing. As the other comment points out, we've come to expect that no pricing page means sales contact etc., individual customers are typically not interested in that.

sandman83 5y ago

Any plans on integrating with Github / Github Actions at any point?

mesadb 5y ago
Hi, we have a webhook that can be triggered from Github PR's etc. If that's something you need would love to help if it's not clear.

notadev 5y ago

Selenium IDE allows recording/playback of actions via browser extensions as well, without having to figure out the XPath, etc., yourself. Preflight looks much nicer than Selenium IDE interface, but is it much more different in its function? Can you run Preflight on-prem or must the AUT be accessible to the Internet? Regarding the Context Awareness, is there any issue with working with React apps? If I renamed an item in the navbar, or changed the position of an element (thus changing the XPath), would CA be able to identify and workaround that? Questions aside, it’s a great idea and the app looks great.

mesadb 5y ago
Yes, it's almost similar to Selenium IDE. We capture more data like target screenshot and context of the element etc. We get rid of automatically generated IDs or classes. We can access to environments behind the VPNs. But it's hassle-free if it's accessible through the internet. Actually we also implemented Context awareness for SPAs with CSS Module to adapt to the changes. We are agnostic to HTML changes and if we can find the element we will update the selectors after the test is successful. Thank you very much for the kind words!

neeleshs 5y ago

Can it work with canvas based drag/drop apps? Would be very interested, if it can

mesadb 5y ago
Hi @neeleshs, we are actually about to launch that. We will use Computer Vision to find the elements and drag and drop. Would love to help you with that or drop you an email when we launch it. It should be live next week or so
- neeleshs 5y ago
  Thank you! Will sign up
- mesadb 5y ago
  Here is a quick overview of Computer Vision click if it's canvas. We automatically understand that for you. https://www.loom.com/share/efc779da15654f098b67c57772cec477 https://www.loom.com/share/efc779da15654f098b67c57772cec477 Here is the visual checkpoint (regression): https://www.loom.com/share/b9448ba5e76e410089be6840053a8596 https://www.loom.com/share/b9448ba5e76e410089be6840053a8596

claytongulick 5y ago

I actually need this too right now, but without a pricing page I just move along. I'm bombarded by vendors every day trying to "recapture" a sale, as part of an automated sales pipeline process. I rarely provide contact details prior to being able to: 1) understand the product, what it does, and whether it will work for me 2) understand the pricing and sla 3) understand the business continuity model I'd rather have a more difficult solution (selenium) that I know the above three points about than to get sucked into yet another sales pipeline.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mesadb 5y ago
It's here now: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing

wesleyfsmith 5y ago

Seems really promising, but how does it work with browser extensions? For instance, I'm looking for something like this that will help me test my crypto app that uses metamask at various points through the app. Also, no public pricing page is a bit of a turn off, especially when I created an account and still couldn't find any pricing info.

mesadb 5y ago
Hi Wesley, you should be able to see the price on here now: https://app.preflight.com/account/billing https://app.preflight.com/account/billing. Sorry if we made a mistake It should be no problem with MetaMask. Edit: Also listened to everyone and put the pricing on the web page: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing
- kanwisher 5y ago
  How can you interact with another browser plugin from a plugin, that doesn't seem to make sense
  - mesadb 5y ago
    I'm sorry I am a little confused. We use Chrome extension to record your Browser tests. (Not browser plugin tests)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

econnors 5y ago

how's this compare to datadog synthetics? https://docs.datadoghq.com/synthetics/ https://docs.datadoghq.com/synthetics/

mesadb 5y ago
They work with selectors in general. We understand the page structure and even though there is a UI change we adapt to it. They have a little bit more functionality at the moment but we should catch them soon.

endisneigh 5y ago

I don't understand the OPs attitude around publishing basic information without signing up. Here's the pricing for those who are curious: Starter - 300 tests/month $99 /mo Startup - 1,000 tests/month $300 /mo Competitors are cheaper and include more tests.

mesadb 5y ago
Yeap it's right here: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing (Edit: just added.) Which competitors? Where are they running the tests on? Do they adapt to changes and save your valuable time? Or charge small and run tests with selectors like: .wudfj289hf .a9dfh82hf .sadf98h which breaks each time you deploy?
- endisneigh 5y ago
  > Yeap it's right here: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing pretty misleading for you to act like that page was already there. you just added it. your lack of transparency is pretty disturbing. EDIT: wow OP got flagged and deleted their original reply, lol. cheaper options (just YC, not counting non-YC) https://www.superadmin.so/ https://www.superadmin.so/ https://reflect.run/ https://reflect.run/ https://www.rainforestqa.com/ https://www.rainforestqa.com/
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mesadb 5y ago
    Sorry - you're right of course - I was just scrambling to reply to everyone and didn't mean to leave a misleading impression. I've edited my comment to be clearer now.
- motoxpro 5y ago
  Man, I know you don't care because you said "But If you don't have a serious pain point around testing and you want to miss the best option out there. It's fine by me." but you attitude in this thread totally turned me off and makes me feel like you might not be around that long if you don't have the humility to take feedback/respect others and I don't want to bet my company on it. i.e. you say "save your valuable time" but you at the same time say if you don't care enough to use your time to sign up to see the pricing then we don't want you. You changed it, I know. You totally could go on to be a huge company and that's great, but just not the people I want to associate with.

danr4 5y ago

Pricing: https://i.imgur.com/Hhv747C.png https://i.imgur.com/Hhv747C.png $99/mo 300 tests / month $300/mo 1000 tests / month Aside from hiding prices, the sign up process has another annoying dark pattern - you sign up, they prompt you to schedule onboarding call (only option, no other button), then if you click anywhere or wait a few seconds a "Continue to Dashboard" button appears. If you click it you have an "Are you sure?" button instead. Instant turn off.

mesadb 5y ago
Thank you for making my life easier. It's here now: https://preflight.com/pricing https://preflight.com/pricing We want to make sure we help you. Testing is not easy even though we try everything we can to make it easy.
- gramie 5y ago
  Nowhere on your pricing page does it say that the prices are per month. My first assumption was that you had to keep paying as you ran tests, and would have looked elsewhere had I not read the correct information in this HN discussion.
  - mesadb 5y ago
    Hi, the pricing page was not up and I put it on after getting some feedback from the community. It's per month. It was a quick page. I'll update that part.

easton 5y ago

Why Windows/macOS and not Linux for the test runners? Chrome/Firefox runs just fine on Linux, and then you don't have to pay for licenses. (I suppose if you get one of those resale agreements with MS you wouldn't have to either as long as you bill the customer, but as the customer I don't care about what OS the browser is running on.)

mesadb 5y ago
Thank for your comment. I see your point. Linux is fine for functional testing. But we just want to test how your users use your app. Our end goal is to use keyboard and mouse on OS level. And adapt to the changes. Some of the functionality and fonts don't work on linux so it's a little tricky.
- easton 5y ago
  Ideally the app shouldn't work differently based on what OS the browser is running on (especially since Chrome OS is more popular than macOS these days, and that's a Linux. Not to mention Android and iOS which behave differently too.). Most distros offer font packages that can get you the stock Microsoft fonts if you're missing those, although these days I think it would be safest for the server to serve any fonts that aren't on all three platforms by default. On Ubuntu, you can do `apt-get install -y ttf-mscorefonts-installer` to get them.
depressedpanda 5y ago
That's unfortunate. Even on GitHub -- owned by Microsoft -- Windows runners are twice the cost of Linux runners (macOS is 10x). Given that, the extra unnecessary cost is almost certainly pushed onto the customer.
- mesadb 5y ago
  Yeah I didn't like that news as well. But most of the users are on MacOs and Windows. So we really want to test how your users use your app. We have plans on adding linux but it will take longer.