Looking back as we get ready for 2020

In what seems like a blink of an eye, 2019 started and is already coming to a close! We look back on the year and relish in all the great moments we had. We’re pleased to say that since January, our company has grown 40%. We’ve also expanded into new territories with a new office in London and another in Santiago, Chile, where we already have a local team of 10 people.

We went to several events across the globe both in person and virtually. In May, we sponsored TestingUY in Montevideo, Uruguay where Janet Gregory, Melissa Eaden, and Lisa Crispin were featured speakers. We had a great time sharing our culture with these ladies in testing. Our COO, Federico Toledo went to several more events and met many other testers at Test Bash SF, QA & Test in Bilbao, Spain, and the “PAC to the Future” Virtual conference by Neotys, in which he spoke about adding performance verifications in CD, among others.

In 2019 we also received some outstanding recognition, being named a top software testing provider by TEST Magazine and ranking in the leader’s matrix for testing firms by the B2B services ratings and reviews website, Clutch.

And, last but not least, in 2019 we continued to blog about all aspects of software testing for over 200,000 readers! So, without further ado, here are our most popular articles of 2019:

10. 14 Best Performance Testing Tools and APM Solutions

We get asked all the time, “What are the best tools for testing performance?” And, of course, it depends! Whether you work in agile or waterfall, seek an open source or an enterprise solution, there is definitely a tool that suits your needs. One of our senior performance engineers, Andrei Guchín, compiled a list of our favorite tools to help ensure system and website reliability.

Read “14 Best Performance Testing Tools and APM Solutions.“

9. How to Quickly Set Up Test Automation in CI/CD

At Abstracta, we work with several clients to automate checks into their CI/CD pipeline. Having done it so many times, and often using the same tech stack, one of our quality engineers, Juan Pablo Sobral, decided to make a playbook that anyone can use that will cut down the set up time to automate tests with Selenium in a Jenkins pipeline.

So, now you have no excuse not to get those checks up and running!

Read “How to Quickly Set Up Test Automation in CI/CD.”

8. Does Software Testing Improve Quality, Actually?

Were you there to see the twitter-verse debating whether or not testers directly improve software quality? Yes, we do test it and we report the findings so someone can fix it. Can we take credit for the quality of software? (Maybe when it’s good, yes, and if it’s bad, no 😉). In this post, our COO, Federico Toledo weighs in on the debate.

Read “Does Software Testing Improve Quality, Actually?”

7. Best Demo Websites for Practicing Different Types of Software Tests

Plain and simple, this post provides a handy list for any tester who wants to try out a new tool or have a demo website for webinars, tutorials, etc. A good one to bookmark for future reference!

Check out the demo websites.

6. Are Agile Testers Still a Thing?

Scrum means no testers anymore, right? We pondered what a tester is to do with the loss of specific roles and the coupling of others in Agile teams so that testers can continue to provide the most value.

Read “Are Agile Testers Still a Thing?”

5. 7 Security Tools to Try Now

Security should be a top priority for any company that doesn’t want to make the headlines for experiencing a breach and losing the confidence of their customer base. Fortunately, security checks are another aspect that can be integrated into a CI/CD pipeline. With the right tools, you can make sure to protect your company and client data.

Read “7 Security Testing Tools to Try Now.”

4. A Guide to Good Cucumber Practices

Best cut into slices and added to a glass of ice water… No, wait! We don’t mean that kind of cucumber, we mean the tool that supports behavior-driven development (BDD). In this post, Abstracta tester, Luis Zambra, shares good practices for writing scenarios in Gherkin and shares some helpful resources for anyone getting started with Cucumber.

Read “A Guide to Good Cucumber Practices.”

3. 12 Top Test Automation Tools to Try in Your Next Project

Again, another blog post where we recommend our favorite tools. We really dove deep into more and more of them, as evident in this post where we list the advantages of tools like Selenium Web Driver, SauceLabs, mabl and more.

Read “12 Top Test Automation Tools to Try in Your Next Project.”

2. When to Automate a Test?

In order to make test automation worthwhile, it’s first important to know which test cases are worth the time and effort to automate; and no, it isn’t always best to automate as much as possible. In this post, we discuss some myths around test automation and good criteria for picking which test cases you should automate.

Read “When to Automate a Test?”

1. Expert Roundup: Software Testing Trends 2019

Early in the year, we asked some of today’s testing thought leaders like Raj Subramanian and Janet Gregory on what they hoped to see more of from testers in 2019. Think they hit the nail on the head? Check out the post to see if their predictions came true!

Read: “Expert Roundup: Software Testing Trends 2019”

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There you have it, some highlights of our year and the 10 most popular articles we shared to our blog. Tell us, what are some topics you’d like to see us write about in the future?

Also, if you missed it, check out our Ultimate Guide to Continuous Testing, which sums up a vast amount of our knowledge and experiences from helping development teams to integrate tests into their CI/CD pipeline and mature their test efforts:

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