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CrossBrowserTesting VS Ably

Compare CrossBrowserTesting VS Ably and see what are their differences

Modelence
Create production-ready applications with zero code featured
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Contents:
  1. ยป Base Details
  2. ยป Videos
  3. ยป Reviews
  4. ยป Alternatives

CrossBrowserTesting logo CrossBrowserTesting

Browser Testing made simple! Run automated, visual, and manual tests on 1500+ real browsers and mobile devices. Test more browsers, in less time.

Ably logo Ably

The realtime platform that just works. We power more WebSocket connections than any other pub/sub platform, serving over 2 billion devices monthly.
  • CrossBrowserTesting Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-23
  • Ably Ably homepage
    Ably homepage //
    2024-08-05

We help teams deliver resilient AI UX and high-performance live experiences that stay fast and in sync worldwide. We provide the global realtime layer for AI agents, chat, notifications, live dashboards, and collaboration - engineered to handle peak demand without self-managed infrastructure.

Teams like HubSpot and Intercom use Ably to avoid the cost and complexity of building and operating realtime systems, while still getting predictable performance at serious scale, handling 2T+ API operations per month. Ablyโ€™s Pub/Sub, Chat, and AI Transport products are unified by design, with developer-friendly APIs and SDKs that integrate across your stack.

CrossBrowserTesting

Website
crossbrowsertesting.com
Pricing URL
Official CrossBrowserTesting Pricing
$ Details
-
Release Date
-
Edit details

Ably

Website
ably.com
Pricing URL
Official Ably Pricing
$ Details
freemium
Release Date
2016 January
Startup details
Country
United Kingdom
Founder(s)
Matthew O'Riordan, Dr. Paddy Byers
Employees
50 - 99
Edit details

CrossBrowserTesting features and specs

  • Wide Range of Browsers and Devices
    CrossBrowserTesting offers a large selection of browsers and devices, allowing developers to test their applications in various environments to ensure compatibility.
  • Live Testing
    Users can perform live interactive testing on real devices, enabling them to manually verify the behavior of their application and catch issues that automated tests might miss.
  • Automated Testing Integration
    The platform provides integration with popular testing frameworks and tools such as Selenium, Appium, and others, facilitating automated testing workflows.
  • Visual Testing
    CrossBrowserTesting offers visual testing capabilities, allowing users to compare screenshots from different browsers to identify design inconsistencies.
  • Comprehensive Reports
    Detailed test reports with screenshots and logs are generated, helping users to quickly identify and address issues found during testing.
  • Parallel Testing
    The service supports parallel testing, enabling users to run multiple tests simultaneously, significantly reducing the overall testing time.
  • Easy-to-Use Interface
    The user interface is intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy for both beginners and experienced testers to navigate and utilize the platform effectively.

Possible disadvantages of CrossBrowserTesting

  • Cost
    CrossBrowserTesting can be expensive, especially for small teams or individual developers who might find the subscription plans to be cost-prohibitive.
  • Performance
    Tests on real devices can sometimes be slow due to the availability and network constraints, which can affect the overall efficiency of the testing process.
  • Limited Mobile Devices
    While the platform includes a variety of devices, the selection might not cover all the latest models or less common devices, potentially limiting testing coverage.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    Some advanced features and integrations might require a learning curve, which could be challenging for users who are not familiar with automated testing or the specific tools supported.
  • Test Timeout Issues
    Occasional issues with test timeouts have been reported, which can disrupt the testing process and require reruns or additional troubleshooting.

Ably features and specs

  • Scalability
    Ably is designed to handle a massive number of concurrent connections and messages, making it scalable for both small and large applications.
  • Real-time Messaging
    Ably provides robust real-time messaging capabilities with low latency, supporting use-cases like live chat, gaming, and real-time data streaming.
  • Global Presence
    Ably has a globally distributed network, ensuring low latency and high availability for users around the world.
  • Advanced Features
    It offers advanced features such as message history, presence, and push notifications, which can enhance the functionality of real-time applications.
  • Security
    Ably includes built-in security features such as TLS encryption, token-based authentication, and private channels to ensure secure communication.
  • Extensive Documentation
    The service provides extensive and well-organized documentation, making it easier for developers to integrate and utilize its features.
  • SDKs and Libraries
    Ably offers a wide range of SDKs and libraries for different programming languages and platforms, easing the development process.
  • Reliable Delivery
    It ensures reliable message delivery with features like message queuing and message de-duplication.

Possible disadvantages of Ably

  • Complexity
    Due to its wide range of advanced features, the initial learning curve can be steep for new users.
  • Cost
    For large-scale applications or extensive use of advanced features, the costs can add up, making it potentially expensive.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Relying heavily on Ablyโ€™s platform-specific features may result in vendor lock-in, making it challenging to switch to other services in the future.
  • Dependence on Internet Connection
    As a cloud-based service, Ablyโ€™s performance is highly dependent on the quality and reliability of the internet connection.
  • Third-party Integration
    While Ably offers various integration options, integrating certain third-party services may require additional custom development or may not be as seamless.

Analysis of CrossBrowserTesting

Overall verdict

  • CrossBrowserTesting is generally regarded as a good solution for cross-browser testing needs, particularly for teams that require real-time testing and robust automation capabilities. Its ease of use, extensive browser/device coverage, and integration options make it a strong choice for many development and QA teams.

Why this product is good

  • CrossBrowserTesting is considered a valuable tool because it provides a cloud-based platform for testing websites and mobile applications across different browsers, devices, and operating systems. It enables developers and QA teams to ensure that their applications function correctly on various platforms without needing to maintain a complex setup of physical devices. The platform offers real-time debugging, automated screenshot testing, and integration with various CI/CD tools, which streamlines the testing process.

Recommended for

    This service is highly recommended for software development teams, QA engineers, and web developers who need to ensure compatibility and functionality of their web applications across multiple browsers and devices. It is particularly useful for organizations with a focus on maintaining high-quality user experiences across various platforms.

Analysis of Ably

Overall verdict

  • Ably is a reliable and efficient real-time messaging platform, well-suited for applications requiring high performance and scalability. It is generally well-regarded within the developer community for its ease of use and robust feature set.

Why this product is good

  • Features
    Ably provides a comprehensive suite of features such as pub/sub messaging, presence, and history.
  • Security
    It implements robust security practices including TLS encryption, token-based authentication, and private channels.
  • Integration
    Supports numerous protocols and provides SDKs for various programming languages, making it easy to integrate with different systems.
  • Reliability
    Ably offers high availability and low latency, ensuring messages are delivered in real-time.
  • Scalability
    The platform can handle millions of active connections and is designed for horizontal scaling.

Recommended for

  • developers building real-time applications like chat apps, dashboards, or multiplayer games
  • businesses in need of a scalable solution for live updates and notifications
  • teams looking for a platform with strong security and compliance credentials
  • organizations requiring integration with existing development workflows and tools

CrossBrowserTesting videos

+ Add

Cross Browser Testing Tool Comparison โ€“ LambdaTest vs. CrossBrowserTesting

Ably videos

+ Add

How to build a collaborative environment around your product

More videos:

  • Demo - How to build an avatar stack with Ably Spaces
  • Demo - Ably 101: Serverless WebSockets at scale

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to CrossBrowserTesting and Ably)

CrossBrowserTesting

Ably

Website Testing
100 100%
Website Testing
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
Developer Tools
100% 100
Browser Testing
100 100%
Browser Testing
0% 0
Realtime Backend / API
0 0%
Realtime Backend / API
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using CrossBrowserTesting and Ably. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ably should be more popular than CrossBrowserTesting. It has been mentiond 26 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.

CrossBrowserTesting mentions (6)

  • How can I test my site on safari if I don't have a Mac ?
    Yeah I moved on pretty quick from browserstack, but it seems to be the most popular. I've tried crossbrowsertesting.com but at the moment I really like app.lambdatest.com. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • great list of "cool" sites from hnews
    Https://geizhals.de/ - this is a german site but the UI is nice and you can find a lot of stuff. Https://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3? - a phone search site. When I was at https://crossbrowsertesting.com we used this site a lot Https://www.howacarworks.com/ - how a car works Https://www.mcmaster.com/ - the UI here is so nice. Those illustrations Https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/ - how does a mechanical... - Source: dev.to / about 4 years ago
  • Learn How To Create, Test and Deploy a Single Page App with Vue 3 + Vite and Pinia
    Fortunately we donโ€™t need to install, nor configure, any other tools, unless maybe some fancy reporters, but for now we can get everything we need in terms of end-to-end automated testing out of Nightwatch. Besides Chrome, Nightwatch has built-in support for all major browsers, including Firefox, Edge, and Safari, all thanks to its integration with the W3C Webdriver API and Selenium. It also allows you to use... - Source: dev.to / over 4 years ago
  • Free for dev - list of software (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.)
    Crossbrowsertesting.com - Manual, Visual, and Selenium Browser Testing in the cloud - free for Open Source. - Source: dev.to / almost 5 years ago
  • How do yโ€™all test responsiveness of website?
    Professionally, I do basically the same for dev testing. We also have various devices on different platforms/versions in the office when needed, and our QA team primarily uses Cross Browser Testing Tool. If I need to check something specific, I usually use CBT. Source: about 5 years ago
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Ably mentions (26)

  • AWS us-east-1 outage: How Ablyโ€™s multi-region architecture held up
    During this weekโ€™s AWS us-east-1 outage, Ably maintained full service continuity with no customer impact. This was our multi-region architecture working exactly as designed; error rates were negligibly low and unchanged throughout. Any additional round trip latency was limited to 12ms, which is below the typical variance in any client-to-endpoint connection, and well below our 40โ€“50ms global median; this is... - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Real-Time Sync Alternatives: Vaultrice vs. localStorage, DIY, Firebase, Pusher
    Services like Pusher and Ably are experts in real-time messaging. They provide robust APIs for pub/sub channels, allowing you to broadcast events to clients reliably. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • CometChat Alternatives โ€“ Comparing the Top 10 Competitors
    Ably is a real-time infrastructure platform that focuses on delivering low-latency, reliable messaging across global distributed systems. It's designed for developers building event-driven applications, including chat, but also supports broader use cases like live dashboards, GPS tracking, and collaborative tools. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Real-Time Authorization in a Chat Application with Permit.io and WebSockets
    For our web socket-based application, weโ€™ll be using Next.js and Ably, a service that allows us to easily integrate and manage real-time capabilities in our apps powered by web socket. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Curiosity: Using Ably.io Realtime Messaging as a Lightweight Database
    Ably offers various solutions for developers, with their most popular being realtime messaging based on the pub/sub model. When you publish a message to a channel, all devices connected to that channel receive it instantly. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing CrossBrowserTesting and Ably, you can also consider the following products

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

Pusher - Pusher is a hosted API for quickly, easily and securely adding scalable realtime functionality via WebSockets to web and mobile apps.

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

Socket.io - Realtime application framework (Node.JS server)

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

PubNub - PubNub is a real-time messaging system for web and mobile apps that can handle API for all platforms and push messages to any device anywhere in the world in a fraction of a second without having to worry about proxies, firewalls or mobile drop-offs.

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