Why companies move away from Kualitee to aqua
Automation Management
27 mins read
July 9, 2024

Why companies move away from Kualitee to aqua

Test management solutions are far too many. Some even go further than just testing and enable you to do both development and QA in the same testing software tool. In this article, we will compare two such solutions: AI-powered aqua and Kualitee.

photo
photo
Denis Matusovskiy
Martin Koch

Deployment models

aqua and Kualitee both provide Cloud and On-Premise offerings. The latter make these tools suitable for heavily regulated domains, such as banking and government agencies.

aqua deployment models

aqua deployment models

One major difference between the tools is that aqua provides a private cloud option while Kualitee lacks it. Private cloud is a solid option if you want to be independent from the vendorā€™s server infrastructure but donā€™t need the hassle or extra costs of going On-Premise.

Deployment model
Kualitee
aqua
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes

User Management

Flexible user management is a great asset even if you work outside of heavily regulated industries. For example, itā€™s not uncommon for young B2C startups to find QA solace in crowd testing. You, however, wouldnā€™t want eager individuals to do something on your server that they shouldnā€™t, especially when working in ALM. In that sense, individual user permissions are better than presets.

Kualitee's user management

Kualitee’s user management

aqua's permission editor

aqua’s permission editor

Criteria
Kualitee
aqua
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Test Management

Both tools offer solid test management functionality. Kualitee, however, is lacking when it comes to some efficiency-minded features, e.g. nested test cases and labels. It also doesnā€™t store a history of changes to the test case ā€” a serious violation of traceability requirements found in some industries.

Bulk editing in Kualitee

Bulk editing in Kualitee

Test management with aqua

 

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Kualitee
aqua
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Integrations & Automated Testing

Kualitee and aqua both cultivate the third-approach for automation testing. They enable you to connect the industryā€™s best automation tools either out-of-the-box or via REST API. The latter makes both solutions future-proof, as you can hook external tools even if Kualitee or aqua stop active development.

aqua also brings a unique integration among test management solutions ā€” a Chrome extension to run tests and immediately document them. aqua Test Recorder enables you to record interactions, edit captured data, leave comments, annotate screenshots, and then send everything to your companyā€™s aqua server. This approach saves time on all the tab switching, and immediate documentation ensures the QA specialists share everything they observed.

For context, virtually all aqua competitors lack a first-party Chrome extension. They have to rely on third-party solutions that often cost extra money and lack native integrations with test management solutions.

Feature
Kualitee
aqua
No
Yes
Yes ( Jira, Redmine, Asana, ClickUp )
Yes ( Jira link, Jira sync )
Yes ( Selenium )
Yes ( 10 tools )
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes ( Github, Gitlab )
No
No
Yes
Yes ( Azure DevOps )
No
Full list of aqua integrations

Full list of aqua integrations

Dashboards

Dashboards are a great tool for testers. Lead testers can see the progress of their team, while the other QA specialists can identify trends, e.g. certain automated tests flopping too much. Thereā€™s also value in visualized high-level overview for developers and the product team, too.

Both aqua and Kualitee offer solid dashboards with some nice-to-haves. The embedded filter functionality is a nice touch from Kualitee, while aqua is much more flexible regarding displayed data.

Kualiteeā€™s multi-project dashboard

Kualiteeā€™s multi-project dashboard

aqua dashboard with KPI Alert at work

aqua dashboard with KPI Alert at work

Feature
Kualitee
aqua
Yes
Yes
Yes ( 15 widgets )
No ( Any data )
No
Yes
Yes ( Pie chart, line graph )
Yes ( Pie, bar, stacked bar chart; table chart )
No
Yes

KPI Alerts are a major time saver for any scale. Once you set up dashboards, you don’t have to look at them ever again unless aqua notifies you there is a problem. One less routine to worry about, more hours to do something innovative.

Create dashboards that auto-notify you about issues

Try aqua

Reporting

Kualiteeā€™s reporting functionality is quite restrictive. You can pick between one of the six report types which, while covering the bases, canā€™t be customised any further. In fact, you canā€™t even add anything other than the data from the test management solution (and not all of it).

kualitee test case traceability report

Kualitee test case traceability report

aqua report example

aqua report example

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Kualitee
aqua
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ALM

Both tools have Application Lifecycle Management features. While aqua is a test management solution that can be used as ALM, Kualitee advertises itself as an ā€œALM alternativeā€. It is perhaps a good way to describe the toolā€™s limited project management functionality. Kualitee wonā€™t let you to natively apply popular software development methodology, such as Agile. aqua also comes out ahead with the workflow functionality that defines the ticket lifecycle across the server or within a project.

Feature
Kualitee
aqua
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Kualiteeā€™s build manager

Kualiteeā€™s build manager

Kualiteeā€™s requirements manager

Kualiteeā€™s requirements manager

aqua project plan

aqua project plan

aqua workflow

aqua workflow

Setting up

Kualitee matches aquaā€™s offering of first-party migration tool for a free transition. Both solutions are pretty simple when it comes to getting started with the Cloud version. On-premise, however, is a much more time- and money-consuming endeavour with Kualitee.

Criteria
Kualitee
aqua
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes

Misc.

Letā€™s look at everything else that didnā€™t quite fit other categories.

Feature
Kualitee
aqua
Yes ( 7-day trial )
Yes ( 30-day trial )
No
Yes ( Unlimited )
Yes ( Several hours )
Yes ( 24 hours )

Conclusion

aqua has a small lead on Kualitee when it comes to test management features and dashboards. Kualitee, however, is seriously behind on reporting, user management, integrations & automated testing, and project management. Kualiteeā€™s migration & setup are a red flag for on-premise clients: you pay a setup fee to wait a month before you can use a tool that you donā€™t even own.

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FAQ
What is Kualitee testing software used for?

Kualitee is a cloud-based test management software used for managing software testing efforts.

What are the differences between aqua and Kualitee?

Kualitee rivals aqua in non-AI testing functionality, but brings much inferior reporting and a smaller suite of native integrations. It also has a lengthy rollout schedule for the On-Premise package and does not offer free licences for browsing and basic actions.

What are the benefits of the aqua testing tool?

The benefits of the aqua testing tool include increased efficiency and accuracy, as well as the ability to scale testing efforts and support a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline.

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