Manual Testing VS Automation Testing: A Detailed Comparison

Manual and Automation Testing: What’s the Difference?

While the basic difference between automation and manual testing is obvious – computer programs perform the latter, while a person performs the former – there are other methods to dissect these terms. We have prepared a quick comparison of these two testing strategies for your convenience:

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Manual Testing VS Automation Testing: Pros and Cons

There’s no clear winner between these testing methods, even though some might believe otherwise. Let’s compare manual and automation testing pros and cons to see what fits your goals better.

As you can see, each technique has its strengths and weaknesses, and the best choice depends on your project’s specific needs. This is how our senior QA analyst outlines our testing approach:

“You can’t just say, “stick to manual testing” or “always go with automation.” It really depends on what you’re trying to achieve. For instance, we lean toward manual testing when working on smaller projects, evaluating user interfaces, or exploring new features. It’s also our go-to when project requirements are changing all the time —manual testing saves us from constantly rewriting test scripts.

On the flip side, automated testing is a lifesaver when it comes to checking areas of the app that have already been tested. It ensures that new updates don’t break any existing functionality. And if you’re dealing with repetitive tasks, automation is the way to go—it speeds things up and makes the process much more efficient .”

Manual Testing: Key Steps Involved and When to Use

Now that we’ve compared both types of testing and understand the basics of each strategy, let’s explore them in more depth. We’ll start with manual testing, looking at how manual testing is done and when it’s most useful.

How Is Manual Testing Done?

“The best part of manual testing is that it can find something automated testing never will.”

— Michael Bolton, consulting software tester and testing teacher

Regardless of the type of manual testing we use, all our testers follow the same Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC), which includes eight key steps. However, the project may require a few extra steps, which we’ll discuss later. Let’s dive into the full process in detail.

Requirements Analysis

Just like in any journey, the first steps are the most important. We kick things off with a thorough analysis of the requirements to get a clear understanding of the functionality embedded in the product. This foundational work sets the stage for our testing strategies development. At this stage we:

• Dive into documentation. We start by examining the technical specifications, business requirements, and user stories. This helps our team grasp the project’s architecture, identify which features are essential for end users, and understand how they will interact with the product.
• Build communication with all project stakeholders. If the developers are on the client’s side, we discuss the technical aspects and limitations right from the get-go. Our testers also closely collaborate with business analysts to understand the broader requirements of the product. Whenever possible, we also engage with end users through interviews to clarify their expectations.

Test Planning

After fully understanding the project’s goals and what users need, our testers create a test plan. It is like a roadmap for the entire testing process, which lays out the requirements and what should be prioritized. Since, in our experience, project needs can change over time, we make sure to stay flexible and keep track of those changes. Here’s what’s our main focus in the plan:

• Objectives. What are our goals during testing, whether it’s checking if features work properly or spotting performance problems.
• Scope. What we’ll be testing, including which parts of the product are most important to focus on.
• Resources and responsibilities. Who will be testing, what tools we need, and who is responsible for each task.
• Timeline. Setting deadlines for each part of the process, from writing test cases to wrapping up testing. 

Our QA experts always say that a strong test plan prepares you for any challenges and gives confidence that every aspect of your software receives the same level of care and attention.

Test Case Development

With the plan in hand, our team shifts its focus to writing test cases. These are clear, step-by-step instructions to check if everything works as it should. Here’s what our QA team covers in the test cases:

• Requirements. We link each test case to a specific requirement or user story to make sure the system acts as expected in different real-life situations.
• Scenarios. Our test cases cover both positive (expected) and negative (unexpected) scenarios. For example, a positive scenario might be a user successfully placing an order on the site, while a negative scenario would be a user failing to do so because they didn’t enter the required information.
• Expected results. Each case explains exactly how the system should behave, so testers know if it passed or failed.

Environment Setup

Next, our team prepares the environment for testing. That’s what it looks like:

• Hardware and software setup. We configure any necessary devices, servers, and software versions to recreate the production environment.
• Network and data configuration. The testing environment also needs to be as close to real-world conditions as possible, so our team has to prepare the network and data setup accordingly. 

Without this step, it’s impossible to get accurate results that reflect what users will actually experience. Based on our experience, if this step isn’t done correctly, it can lead to significant issues after the product is released.

Test Execution

At this stage, we start running the very tests. Our testers follow the steps, which they previously outlined in the test cases, checking how the actual results compare to what was expected:

• First, we run each test case in sequence to make sure everything’s covered. 
• Then, the testers note any differences between what was expected and what actually happened.
• Finally, our team identifies bugs or performance issues that need to be fixed before the product can move forward.

Reporting Bugs

If any issues arise during the tests, they are carefully recorded and reported. Our reports include: 

• How to recreate the bug
• How serious it is
• How it might affect the software

For example, if a user can’t finish a purchase because of an error, we explain how to trigger the problem, rate it as critical, and describe how it impacts the user experience. 

This system helps everyone involved understand how important these bugs are and make sure that our team or your developers don’t overlook them.

Retesting and Regression Testing

After working with your development team to resolve the bugs, we re-run the tests to make sure the issues are really fixed. Our testers also run regression tests to confirm that recent changes haven’t broken other parts of the software.

Test Cycle Closure

Once the testing is completed and the software meets all your requirements, our team wraps up the testing cycle. At this point, we:

• Review the process. We look at how well the testing went, noting what worked, what didn’t, and any lessons learned.
• Summarize results. Our final report includes details like the number of tests performed, the bugs found and fixed, and any remaining issues. This document is a formal conclusion, confirming that your software is ready for release.

Some types of tests are nearly impossible to automate and are best performed manually. Let us share some professional experiences where manual testing proved to be a better and more valuable approach:

When to Use Manual Testing?

Some types of tests are nearly impossible to automate and are best performed manually. Let us share some professional experiences where manual testing proved to be a better and more valuable approach:

Frequently Changing Outcomes

There was a time when we teamed up with a logistics company to create a user portal where customers could track their shipments and manage their orders. As diving into the project, our testers found that the requirements were constantly shifting due to client feedback. This meant that our development team had to continuously adjust the interface for displaying order status and tweak the algorithms for tracking shipments.

“Given the need for ongoing adaptations, we decided that manual testing was the best approach for this project. It allowed us to stay flexible and responsive to the changing needs, so we could deliver a reliable and user-friendly experience.”

— explains one of Inoxoft’s Test Analysts

One-Time or Ad-Hoc Tests

Sometimes, you need to conduct tests to verify specific conditions or investigate bugs that have already been reported. For this, testers use ad-hoc tests that are not suitable for automation. Once, our team found a bug on a marketplace website that occurred only when a user tried to submit a form without filling in all the required fields. We manually tested the form to recreate the issue, which helped us quickly suggest a fix. Later, learning from this experience, clear steps were defined to reproduce this exact bug, and the test was automated for similar cases. 

Evolving Features

When a new feature is still in development, you need to create tests alongside it. Automating tests during this phase is usually not practical. Recently, we worked on a project where the team was developing a new payment feature that changed frequently based on user feedback. Since the testing requirements shifted very often, our team had to manually test different aspects of the feature as it was being built, which is impossible with automation. 

Short-Term Projects

In smaller projects or those with tight deadlines, manual testing can be quicker and easier than setting up automated tests. It lets us get feedback and make changes fast without writing complex scripts. We’ve seen this often while working with startups that usually need to launch very quickly. In these cases, manual testing helps us fix problems almost immediately, which saves a lot of time.

Automation Testing: Key Steps Involved, Use Cases, and Tools

You may think that automation testing is simpler because it relies on computer programs, but this is a common misconception. In our experience, developing automation scripts can be even more complex than manual testing. Let’s find out why that is. 

How Is Automation Testing Done? 

“Test automation isn’t automatic; it requires a lot more thought and design than just recording a test script.”

— explains Michael Bolton.

With all areas of testing, our specialists follow a similar STLC, but there are important differences in how we carry out each one. Let’s take a look at our automation testing workflow and see what makes it different from the manual one:

Requirements Analysis

Just like in manual testing, our team begins by reviewing the requirements to understand what the product is supposed to do. During this stage, testers check the technical specifications, business requirements, and user stories to get a clear picture of the project’s structure.

We also talk about the technical details and any budget limits with developers and stakeholders. Also, our testers work closely with business analysts to make sure the team really understands all the product’s requirements.

Test Planning

Then, during the test planning stage, testers figure out which tests provide the most value when automated, often choosing high-frequency or time-consuming manual tests. Here’s how it’s done:

• Define goals. We start by understanding the goals of automation testing, which may include improving performance, checking functionality, catching bugs, and more.
• Decide what to automate. We look at the tests and choose which ones are most suitable for automation. Our testers often pick tests that are repetitive, time-consuming, or have a lot of variations.
• Set a timeline. The team creates a schedule that outlines when we plan to automate each test to stay organized and complete the automation on time.
• Expectations and outcomes. Finally, we outline what success looks like for the automation testing to measure our progress and make adjustments if needed.

Choosing the Right Tools

From our experience, the success of a project greatly depends on the tools you choose. Using the wrong technology stack can lead to delays, ineffective communication, and bottlenecks. That’s why we carefully evaluate and select automation tools that align with the application’s tech stack and requirements. Some of the important factors include: 

• Platform compatibility

• Ease of integration with CI/CD pipelines

• Reporting capabilities, and
• Whether the tool supports the application’s environment (web, mobile, or desktop)

Test Cases Design

At this stage, our dedicated team turns the manual tests into automated ones, step-by-step. Here’s what happens:

• Use manual tests as a base. Ready-made manual tests are transformed into automated versions, allowing the same scenarios to be covered with less hands-on effort.
• Split tests into smaller parts. We design each test case to be modular, splitting it into reusable components. This approach makes it easier to maintain and update the tests later.
• Define the test steps and data. For each test case, we clearly outline the steps to follow, the data needed, and the expected outcomes. This way, when our team runs the automation, they know exactly what to check and can catch issues right away.

Environment Setup

We set up the environment for automated tests to make sure it matches the production or staging environment. This means configuring databases, servers, APIs, and preparing test data. 

However, automation requires a more structured setup because the environment has to be used repeatedly for running scripts. Automation also needs to support running tests on different machines or configurations without any manual work. To achieve this, we often use tools like Selenium Grid to test across different browsers and devices at the same time.

Script Development

Of course, this stage is the most complex and critical part, where the focus is on writing the code that will run the automated tests. Here’s what happens:

• Our developers create scripts that tell the system exactly what to do during each test. They are built to be reusable, so we can easily adapt them for different situations without starting from scratch each time. Testers also make sure the code is clean and well-organized, so it’s easy to read and maintain over time.
• Then, the scripts handle everything from inputting data, running the test, checking the results, and logging what happened—whether the test passed or failed. By automating this process, our team can run a lot of tests quickly and consistently, without a group of testers to monitor each one.

Tests Execution

Reaching this point, we run the automated scripts we’ve created to check how the software behaves. Here’s how it works in simple terms:

• Run the scripts. Automation tools handle the tests, which might include hundreds of scenarios. The tests are run either on-demand or automatically as part of a scheduled process (like when the software is updated).
• Track the results. While the tests are running, the system tracks everything—successes, failures, and any unexpected behaviors. This lets us see instantly if there’s a problem.

When automated tests detect an issue, the system generates a detailed report that highlights what went wrong. The system logs information like:

• The test case that failed

• Steps that led to the failure

• Error messages or logs

• Screenshots or other evidence (if set up)

We usually integrate these reports with bug-tracking systems, so the issue is logged for us and the development team to review.

Results Review and Retesting

After test execution, we, along with your development team (if you have one), review detailed reports to analyze the outcomes. We look for any discrepancies, investigate failed test cases, and determine whether the failure is due to a bug in the application or an issue with the test script itself. Once the bugs are resolved, our QA managers re-run the tests—either manually or using automation again—to make sure the problems are truly fixed.

Test Cycle Closure

Finally, after we finish testing and the software meets all your requirements, our team concludes the testing cycle. Our final report includes the number and types of tests conducted, the bugs identified and resolved, and any other outstanding issues.

When to Use Automation Testing?

There are many cases where we take advantage of automation testing over manual testing. Here are some of them:

Repetitive Tests

When we need to run the same tests repeatedly, such as regression tests after each software update, automation truly shines. Once, while working on a mobile app update, our team automated the regression suite, which included over 150 test cases, saving us about 40 hours of manual testing time! Automation also ensured that our results remained consistent across different builds. 

High Volume of Tests

If your application needs a lot of testing across many cases or configurations, automation can take care of the heavy lifting that would be time-consuming manually. For example, in a recent project for a retail platform, we had to test hundreds of user scenarios across over 100 product pages. Thanks to automation, these tests were completed in just two days, while doing it manually would have taken our team at least a week. This is how our COO, Nazar Kvaltarnyi describes this case:

“We had to test a ton of user scenarios, as our client insisted on manual testing for better precision. I talked to the team and stakeholders, explaining that relying only on manual testing would put us at risk of a launch delay. Such a high volume of testing doesn’t require a human touch but rather efficient and quick solutions that are much more effective and accurate. We agreed to automate the tests, which became a game-changer for the project.

Our team used tools that integrated with our CI/CD pipeline, making running tests quickly and consistently easy. Each test was also designed to be modular, so we could reuse components for different scenarios, saving us a lot of time. Instead of taking at least a week to get everything done manually, the task was wrapped up in just two days.”

Time-Sensitive Projects

When facing tight deadlines, like during the recent launch of an e-commerce site, we turn to automation to help us speed things up. With only three weeks to go before the launch, our team automated the critical testing paths, which allowed us to run tests simultaneously and meet our deadline. 

Plus, for ongoing projects that get updates very often, we’ve seen that putting time and resources into automation really pays off. It not only saves us effort but also cuts down on costs over time, helping us reduce our testing cycle by at least 50%.

Cross-Browser and Cross-Device Testing

When an app needs to function across various browsers or devices, automation really comes in handy. For instance, while working on an e-learning platform, we had to make sure it looked and functioned well on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and various mobile devices. Using automation, we set up tests to verify the website’s layout and functionality on different screen sizes and browsers. This helped us create a smoother user experience across all platforms.

Complex Calculations or Algorithms

When dealing with tests that involve tricky calculations or large amounts of data, automation really proves its worth. Our experts experienced this firsthand while working on a financial forecasting tool for one FinTech startup, where we automated the tests for different algorithms that processed huge datasets. 

Tools We Use for Automation Testing 

If you want to choose the best automation testing tools for your team, avoid simply copying what works for others. Focus on your team’s specific needs, skills, and plans for future growth.

To make it simpler for you, we asked our QA specialists about their tools of choice, and here’s what they answered:

• Selenium is the tool our testers use for web application testing, while Appium is chosen for mobile applications, as both allow us to build and scale automation from scratch. 
• Katalon Studio framework is favored by our manual testers when they need a low-code, easy-to-use solution that offers both simplicity and comfort.  
• Jest and Mocha are the go-to tools for our experts when working on JavaScript testing, especially for unit and integration tests. 
• JMeter is used by our QA team for performance testing, helping simulate heavy loads and evaluate performance.  
• TestNG and JUnit are also preferred frameworks among our specialists for testing Java applications.

If you wonder, what are manual testing tools, we answer this question and explain which tools are most popular among our QA gurus.

“When it comes to manual testing, we don’t have as many options as for automation, but that doesn’t make these tools any less important. Manual testing usually needs less setup, so the focus is on tools that help us manage our test cases.

For example, we use TestRail to organize our cases and track their progress. It makes it easy to see the progress and what needs attention. JIRA is another favorite of ours; especially when we report bugs or feature requests, keeping everyone on the same page. Another thing is Qase, which has a user-friendly interface for running test cycles.”

Factors to Consider for Different Testing Types 

To choose wisely, you need to understand how different testing methods work in practice. We’ve put together a handy checklist, so you won’t waste hours searching for the perfect solution; instead, you can quickly decide what you need most. Here’s what you should know:

If you lack a testing team, we can provide our expertise to help your application reach its full potential. Contact us.

Our Best Practices

We know that thorough testing is a key step to creating high-quality applications that users truly enjoy and won’t abandon after just one use. Our team of over 125+ QA specialists guarantees that every app we work on meets the highest industry standards and fulfills the needs of even the most demanding critics—your target audience.

With over 10 years of experience under our belts, Inoxoft offers a mix of manual and automated testing, depending on what makes the most sense for the project. Our team knows when to automate repetitive tasks to catch as many errors as possible and when manual testing is the best way to handle unique scenarios. Some of our key services include:

• QA Strategy Development 
• Test Planning and Design
• Test Management 
• Test Automation
• QA Process Improvement
• QA Team Mentoring 

With our deep expertise in both, we’ve got the tools and skills to make sure your app performs exactly as it should, bringing you maximum value and user satisfaction. 

But don’t just take our word for it – check out our case studies and Clutch reviews, where we proudly maintain a perfect 5-star rating, proving our commitment to quality in every aspect of our work. 

Contact us now to discuss your project. Together, we’ll achieve success!

Case Study: Leveraging Automation Testing for Marketplace Development

Our Client 

A passionate European entrepreneur with a heart for local communities came to us with an inspiring vision: to create a marketplace that would help local groups, like sports clubs and charities, raise funds and attract more clients.

Features We Implemented

Taking the reins on all technical aspects, our team developed the feature-packed platform from scratch. We suggested a range of functionalities, including:

• Social media integration to improve the invitation process.
• Payment gateway for secure transactions.
• Real-time analytics to give sellers full visibility over their performance.
• Customizable product listings, so sellers can easily manage and update their product offerings, gaining more control over their stores.

The end goal was to deliver an accessible, user-friendly platform that would help businesses grow their budgets and connect with supporters easily, attracting them with a flawless customer experience.

Our Testing Approach

To make sure everything worked perfectly, our team used automation testing. Why? Given the need for high scalability and flawless operation under heavy traffic, automation allowed us to:

• Speed up testing. Automated tests ran on their own, helping us quickly check that everything worked, from payments to how users navigate the site.
• Spot performance issues early. We tested how the platform handled large amounts of users, making sure it wouldn’t slow down or crash, even during busy periods.
• Keep the platform stable. With ongoing automated tests, the system runs smoothly even after updates or adding new features.

Project Outcomes

As a result, we didn’t just create a working platform – we built one that could grow and handle a lot of activity while staying reliable and secure. When the marketplace launched, sellers saw a lot of benefits, including increased sales, less manual work, secure payment processing, and an overall frictionless experience from start to finish.

Conclusion

Both methods have their strengths and specific uses. Manual testing helps us understand problems in depth and view them from different angles, while automated testing saves time and strengthens the overall testing strategy. 

Striking a balance between these two approaches plays a huge role in any QA strategy, and we know how to combine these testing methods for the best possible outcomes!

If you have a project that needs a dedicated team of QA engineers with over 10 years of experience and more than 200 satisfied clients worldwide, reach out to us, and we’ll try our best to bring your vision to life!