Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Browsershots VS Codeception

Compare Browsershots VS Codeception and see what are their differences

Browsershots logo Browsershots

Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers.

Codeception logo Codeception

Codeception is a new full-stack testing PHP framework.
  • Browsershots Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-15
  • Codeception Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-08-03

Browsershots features and specs

  • Wide Browser Coverage
    Browsershots supports a large variety of browsers across different operating systems, making it easier for developers to see how their website looks in multiple scenarios.
  • Free to Use
    The service offers a free version which allows users to test their websites in numerous browsers without any cost.
  • Screenshot Capability
    It provides screenshots of how websites are rendered in different browsers, enabling developers to quickly identify rendering issues.
  • No Installation Required
    As a web-based tool, Browsershots doesn't require any software installation, making it easily accessible from any machine with an internet connection.

Possible disadvantages of Browsershots

  • Limited Interactivity
    Being a screenshot service, it doesn't support interactive testing, such as click events or navigation within the website.
  • Queue Times
    During peak times, there can be significant delays in getting screenshots due to the queuing system, especially for free users.
  • Outdated Browsers
    Some of the browsers offered for testing are outdated, which may not be useful for modern web development needs.
  • No Real-time Testing
    The service does not offer real-time testing capabilities, which means developers cannot debug issues immediately as they would in a local development environment.

Codeception features and specs

  • Unified Testing Framework
    Codeception allows you to write tests for unit, functional, and acceptance testing in one framework, offering a consistent interface and reducing the need to switch between tools.
  • BDD Support
    Codeception supports Behavior Driven Development (BDD) which enables writing human-readable test scenarios, making it easier for non-developers to understand test cases.
  • Modular Architecture
    Codeception’s modular architecture makes it highly extensible and customizable, allowing the reuse of modules and integration with popular frameworks like Symfony, Laravel, and Yii.
  • Comprehensive Suite of Helpers
    It offers a wide range of helper modules for various tasks and integrations, such as interacting with web pages and SOAP/REST APIs, which simplifies the setup of tests.
  • Active Community and Documentation
    Codeception has an active community and comprehensive documentation, which provides support and examples for most use cases.

Possible disadvantages of Codeception

  • Complex Setup for Beginners
    The flexibility and feature set of Codeception might be overwhelming for newcomers, requiring more time to understand and correctly set up the environment.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Codeception’s comprehensive range of functionalities and modularity may result in a steeper learning curve compared to simpler testing frameworks.
  • Overhead for Small Projects
    For small projects, Codeception might be an overkill due to its complex configuration and multitude of features, which might not all be needed.
  • Heavy Dependency on PHP
    As Codeception is a PHP-based testing framework, teams using multiple languages or technologies might require separate solutions for non-PHP environments.
  • Performance Overhead
    Running complete acceptance tests through browsers can lead to performance overhead, especially for large test suites, possibly requiring more infrastructure and time.

Analysis of Browsershots

Overall verdict

  • Browsershots can be a useful tool for testing website compatibility across different browsers.

Why this product is good

  • It offers a simple way to capture screenshots of a web page as rendered by various browser versions and operating systems, which is helpful for web developers looking to ensure their sites are visually consistent and functional across different environments.

Recommended for

    Web developers and designers who need to check the appearance and functionality of their websites across multiple browser configurations without installing multiple browsers on their machines.

Browsershots videos

Browsershots.org behind the scenes

Codeception videos

Our First Acceptance Test [6/24] Codeception & Symfony2

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to Run Codeception Tests [5/24] Codeception & Symfony2
  • Review - Bootstrapping Codeception [2/24] Codeception & Symfony2

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Browsershots and Codeception)
Website Testing
86 86%
14% 14
Automated Testing
56 56%
44% 44
Browser Testing
74 74%
26% 26
Web Browsers
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Browsershots and Codeception. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Codeception should be more popular than Browsershots. It has been mentiond 8 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Browsershots mentions (2)

Codeception mentions (8)

  • Any pro-tips for writing automated tests with Selenium PHP?
    Personal experience: - don’t use Behat unless you really needed a “story telling”, it has a intermediate layer Gherkin that you’ll need to code. You can write “Given/When/Then” steps but you’ll also need to write “php code” that will interpret this step. - using real browser be prepared for instability - any interaction with JavaScript can broken/delay execution - be prepared that this tests are call functional... Source: about 2 years ago
  • PHPUnit, do i need to learn it?
    Codeception: https://codeception.com/. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Advice for an older symfony 4.4 project
    I would say to check out Codeception. Codeceptions has modules for Symfony and database generally. Long and short of it is that if you want you can run api tests that go into the controllers and rollback the database afterwards. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Automating Tests using CodeceptJS and Testomat.io: First Steps
    There are enough blog posts about Jest or Cypress already, so let me introduce Codecept. It comes in two flavors. There is Codeception for PHP, and there is CodeceptJS for JavaScript which we will be using here. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • Testing PHP Applications
    There are many tools you can use for this purpose, but one I particularly like is CodeCeption. What I like most about it is that it's a unified tool that can be used to perform several types of tests, acceptance being one of them. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Browsershots and Codeception, you can also consider the following products

browserling - Live interactive cross-browser testing from your browser.

PHPUnit - Application and Data, Build, Test, Deploy, and Testing Frameworks

Sauce Labs - Test mobile or web apps instantly across 700+ browser/OS/device platform combinations - without infrastructure setup.

PEST - An elegant PHP testing framework with a focus on simplicity

BrowserStack - BrowserStack is a software testing platform for developers to comprehensively test websites and mobile applications for quality.

LambdaTest - Perform Web Testing on 2000+ Browsers & OS