Which TMS Comes Out on Top?

aqua and Katalon both provide solid foundations: test cases, test plans, custom fields, execution history, and change logs. aqua includes configurable workflows, shared views, and adaptive field logic on all paid plans. Katalon (via TestOps) provides centralised management for manual and automated tests, with real-time dashboards and test orchestration. Configurable workflows and shared team views are available in aqua at every paid tier. Katalon does not list them in its published plan comparison; workflow customisation appears only in Enterprise agreements.

aqua provides 14+ native integrations covering the established QA automation stack: Jira, Jenkins, Confluence, JMeter, PowerShell, Database MSSQL, UnixShell, SoapUI, Ranorex, Database Oracle, REST API, Azure DevOps, UFT, and Selenium. Jira integration includes real-time two-way project sync. aqua Capture, a native bug recording tool, is included in all paid plans. Katalon covers a wider developer ecosystem: CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, Bamboo), testing frameworks (Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Cucumber, Jest, Pytest, Robot), cloud execution providers (BrowserStack, LambdaTest, SauceLabs), and ALM tools (Jira, qTest, TestRail, Xray, Zephyr). Katalon also connects to Git source control (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure Repos) and ingests Playwright results.

aqua uses modular per-product pricing across three named licences. The Requirement Management and Test Management modules are each €89/month per user billed annually. The Test Runner DEV licence is available at €19/month for developers and QA specialists who execute tests but are not involved in test or requirement management. Guest seats are included free in every plan. A Concurrent Licence with shared concurrent access is also available for distributed teams, with pricing discussed individually. The aqua Suite License bundles the full ALM package for €99/month in Private Cloud or On-Premise. Katalon sells three tiers: Katalon Studio at $84 per seat per month annually for the first three seats and $150 from the fourth, True Automation with test management at $167, and custom-priced Enterprise. Execution carries its own licence on top of seats: $1,749 a year per Runtime Engine licence and $1,899 a year per parallel TestCloud session. A five-person team with one of each lands near $12,700 a year.

aqua has offered On-Premise deployment since its first release and continues to provide it through the aqua Suite License alongside Private Cloud. Katalon also offers On-Premise deployment for TestOps, launched for organisations with strict compliance requirements. Katalon’s options include Public SaaS, Private SaaS (single-tenant), and On-Premises. Katalon holds ISO 27001 and SOC 2. aqua holds ISO 27001 and runs GDPR- and DORA-compliant hosting on EU servers, which decides most banking, insurance and public-sector evaluations in Europe.

aqua offers fully custom dashboards on all paid plans, drawing on any workspace data, and includes KPI Alerts that notify users when a metric moves above or below a defined threshold. Katalon (TestOps) provides configurable dashboards with real-time visibility into testing progress, untested areas and release readiness, plus custom dashboards and widgets on True Automation. Automated threshold-based KPI Alerts are not a feature Katalon offers.

aqua provides a fully configurable reporting system with drag-and-drop layouts, pivot tables, custom scripts, parametrised reports, external text and image insertion, and both template-based and bespoke report creation. Reports can be shared externally. Katalon provides traceability and coverage reports, flaky test detection and export with advanced sharing settings. It has no report builder: saved templates, drag-and-drop layouts, pivot tables and scripted reports are available in aqua only.

aqua includes granular roles and permissions on all paid plans, with custom roles available to every customer. Per-user permission settings go beyond role-level assignments. Katalon provides role-based access control via TestOps with default roles available across plans, and SSO on the Scale/Enterprise plan. Per-user individual permissions beyond roles are not supported.

aqua provides full ALM coverage through its modular licences: Requirement Management and Test Management, purchasable individually or together via the aqua Suite License. Katalon covers ALM across four separately licensed products: Studio for authoring, TestOps for test management, TestCloud for execution and TrueTest for production insights. Both tools connect test cases to requirements and support project management workflows.