Desktop Automation Testing Tools

WinAppDriver

• Implementing the WebDriver protocol, WinAppDriver is a tool that allows interaction with classic Windows controls, WPF, WinForms and UWP using multiple languages, such as C#, Java and Python. A downside is that it only runs on Windows 10 machines and not Linux or macOS
• Currently this the most commonly used desktop automation tool.
• This solution is open source and free.
• Can be found at https://github.com/microsoft/WinAppDriver

Appium

• Similar to WinAppDriver, Appium is built using a WebDriver that allows automation for desktop apps, tests can be built using multiple languages by identifying objects through XPaths of the POM (Page Object Model).
• This solution is open source and free.
• Can be found at http://appium.io/

White Framework

• A framework based on .NET that uses Microsoft’s UIAutomation (UIA) to drive its apps. It can test apps written by Win32, WinForms, WPF, Silverlight and JavaSWT. This solution’s documentation is quite limited and is not actively maintained, but still provides benefit as it’s easy to write and execute tests.
• This solution is open source and free.
• Can be found at https://teststackwhite.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

SikuliX

• An app built in Java, which runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. SikuliX is a framework that is based on the visual input of images to identify its objects. A constraint is that SikuliX’s image based objects can cause instability and be slower to execute.
• This solution is open source and free.
• Can be found at http://sikulix.com/