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Check out these PHP Testing Tools and Frameworks that you should use right away!

Automation is demanding across the world for several years and saves human time and energy to a great extent. Without doubts, Coding is a tedious and elusive task. Testing the code is considered to be a crucial aspect of writing software of any level of quality. There are certain PHP tools that are used to test the unit as well as an end to end testing using BDD (Behavior- Driven Development) and TDD (Test- Driven Development).

In this blog, we have listed the prime 10 PHP testing & Optimization tools and PHP frameworks which makes the tester’s and developer’s work apparent to test the code in PHP and report the bugs.

Before moving with the tools list, it is important to know the difference between Frameworks and Tools.

Basically, there is not a much difference between Frameworks and Tools. They both are joined up with each other. In the virtue of developing a new software or language, you use tools and tools can be developed by their own Frameworks.

Let’s dive in..!

• Storyplayer

Right off the bat, Storyplayer tool is an automation tool for both the functional and non-functional requirements of the code written in PHP. Primarily, it is built in Data Sift. Data Sift is an independent provider of social data, blog data and news data. This tool is used to test both the ends of the websites. It comes up with an easy usage and feature-packed. The Freshest version of StoryPlayer that is available in the market is version 1.5.

Tangible Benefits

• The tool is used for testing web-app or API.
• Enables component as well as end-to-end testing.
• Enables Testing End-to-End platforms.
• The tool is designed for both Developers and Testers.
• Can also be used for testing code written in other languages other than PHP.
• Works with web browsers and platform combinations.
• Can be extended with own Plugins as well.

Pros Include

• This tool is an Open source.
• It is Simple and easy to test and debug the code.
• Can be used for cross-browser testing.
• Install via Composer as well.

Cons Include

• Without the installation of a composer, the tool will not work.
• If there is no knowledge of PHP, then it takes time to understand the test cases developed in PHP.

Pricing

• As it is an open source tool, it is available free of cost in the market.

• Selenium HQ

Selenium is a free open source web application automation tool. It is also referred to as the Functional Testing web application automation tool.  It contains a record and playback tool for authoring tests. It also possesses a test domain specific language called Selenese. It is compatible with more than one languages like Java, C# (.net), Ruby, Python, and PHP etc.

Selenium HQ comes up with different flavors such as:

• Selenium core.
• Selenium RC(Selenium1).
• Selenium IDE.

Selendroid can be used only for Android while Appium for both Android and Apple.

Tangible Benefits

• Compatible on all Operating System like Windows, Mac, Linux etc.
• Regression Test cases can be automated by selenium.
• Most popularly used automated tool used for automating code in PHP or Java or other programming languages.
• It has its own Web Driver API.

Pros Include

• Cost is low.
• Cross Browser Testing with its Compatibility.
• Supports different Testing Frameworks.
• Easy to Integrate with a different programming language.
• Used with TDD (Test Driven Development).
• Useful for Comprehensive Testing.

Cons Include

• Difficulty in searching Locators.
• Only limited Browsers are supported.
• You cannot write Manual Scripts.
• Performance is slow.

Pricing

• As it is an open source tool, it is available free of cost in the market.

• PHPUnit

PHPUnit is an open source automation tool used for PHP code. It is one of the popular framework used for unit testing. The PHP code here is tested unit by unit to find out the errors and defects in the code. The Process is a little bit slower and it takes a long time but the chances of getting a bug at the end are less due to unit wise testing.

Tangible Benefits

• The tool is used with Command line.
• You can extend the Test cases as per the requirements stated.
• It uses code assertion to test the behavior of the unit.
• It is one of the simple and easy units testing frameworks.
• This tool is a xUnit architecture for the Unit testing framework.

Pros Include

• This is a feature-packed tool for testing low levels like Unit testing or high levels like API or BDD testing.
• It can also be used with other frameworks also for testing.
• It is totally based on PHP, so test cases are also written in that and programmer doesn’t need to learn several languages for that.

Cons Include

• Configuration is not simple and easier here.
• It doesn’t have much amount of resources and documentation.
• It is totally based on PHP so that if the developers don’t know PHP then they can’t write the test cases for the software.

Pricing

• Since it is an open source tool, it is available at no cost in the market.

• SimpleTest

This is used for the unit as well as the Web testing framework. It supports proxies, SSI, forms, frames etc. If you are using JUnit then you will find it more easy to use. This is a part of Drupal core.

Tangible Benefits

• This tool can be used for unit testing.
• It supports the simplest HTML display.
• Test cases are autoloading here.
• It handles cookies when fetching various pages.
• Test cases can be displayed, without a web browser.
• It also supports Proxy, SSI, forms, frames etc.

Pros Include

• It tests each and every part.
• Easy to understand and identifies bugs if unit testing is done.
• Execution will be done at a faster rate.

Cons Include

• Mocking is complicated here.

Pricing

• The tool is free of cost.

• Kahlan

This Framework is generally used for end to end functional as well as unit testing for PHP. It makes use of describe-it syntax and allows mocking dynamically. Workflow here is customized and extensible. Added, It also has built-in reporters and exporters.

Tangible Benefits

• This tool supports BDD testing framework.
• It also supports monkey patch to your code.
• It checks called methods are present.
• Dynamic mocking is present i.e. stubs.
• It requires Xdebug and phpdbg.

Pros Include

• End to end functional testing is done here.
• Codes are customized and are easy to understand.
• Human-readable English makes understanding easier and friendly.
• The speed of execution is high.
• It helps in Semantic versioning to maintain CHANGELOG.

Cons Include

• If new then it takes time to learn the tool for testing.
• Xdebug and Phpdbg are required for the code coverage.
• This framework supports PHP 5.5+ only.

Conclusion

These tools are mainly based on Behavior-driven development or Test-driven development which is for unit testing and end to end testing. There are many more PHP testing framework and tools that are available in the market and are open source ones but the above-recited tools are the most popular among all the tools.