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How companies stop paying 50 times the price

aqua and Micro Focus Quality Center are both test management solutions that can also be used for the entire product lifecycle. The biggest difference is the price: 200 aqua users would cost you less than 10 QC licences.
But what about the features?

Key differences between aqua and Micro Focus Quality Center

aqua offers free AI testing

aqua is at least $50,000 cheaper

Micro Focus brings traceability concerns

How we compare

Key differences between aqua and Micro Focus Quality Center

AI

AI is a rapidly developing tech, so we will look at cutting-edge tech rather than the baseline. Hereā€™s what you should expect from an AI-powered test management solution:

  • Analyse your workspace to get QA context
  • Create test cases, defects, and even requirements from a plain text description
  • Complete test case drafts
  • Prioritise tests
  • Remove duplicate tests and defects

Artificial intelligence in QA is usually a small in-house effort. aqua went further by adapting OpenAI’s GPT language model to the needs and nuances of software testing. Unlike public ChatGPT, aquaā€™s AI Copilot actually ā€œreadsā€ the context of your project and all your tests to give proper suggestions.

Auto-train AI Copilot with your tests
No AI capabilities
Generate entire tests with AI
No AI capabilities
Complete test drafts
No AI capabilities
Prioritise tests
No AI capabilities
Remove duplicates
No AI capabilities
Auto-train AI Copilot with your tests
Generate entire tests with AI
Complete test drafts
Prioritise tests
Remove duplicates
No AI capabilities
No AI capabilities
No AI capabilities
No AI capabilities
No AI capabilities

Verdict: aqua wins (QC has no AI-powered testing)

Try aqua AI

Test management

Test management is the main reason we are looking at these two tools. You should consider various aspects of handling test cases as well as traceability-minded features. These include:

  • Create, execute, share, and manage test cases in the workspace
  • Group tests into test scenarios, segment them into folders, assign labels
  • Quickly navigate the test suite, apply filters, use individual and shared views
  • See the entire execution history for a test case
  • Store a full log of changes for compliance
  • Visualise requirements coverage and dependencies between requirements, test cases, and defects

aqua and Quality Center are both mature test management solutions. They cover all key QA features, including ones that would take any new competitor years to reach in their backlog. The primary difference is item history: aqua is better for both tracking progress and complying with regulators.

  • Test cases, test scenarios, bulk test edits, custom fields
  • Execution history
  • Quick navigation, filters, views
Timestamped item change history for compliance
Not available
Item change reversal
Not available
  • Test cases, test scenarios, bulk test edits, custom fields
  • Execution history
  • Quick navigation, filters, views
Timestamped item change history for compliance
Item change reversal
Not available
Not available
Verdict: aqua wins by regulators-proof traceability

Integrations

Most tools rely on automation via common third-party tools that QA specialists have been using for over a decade. The experience is much better when your test management solution has native integrations for industry-leading tools. REST API support is a must if you do not want to be at the vendorā€™s mercy for integrations.

  • First-party framework automation or third-party integrations with test automation tools
  • Native third-party integrations: Selenium, Jenkins, JMeter, SoapUI, Ranorex
  • Jira integration and/or Jira plugin
  • REST API support for integrating any tool

Both tools are designed to synergise with industry-leading solutions. aqua has more integrations with test automation tools, while Quality Center has better Microsoft 365 compatibility. In both cases, you can use REST API to make a custom integration for any tool.

  • REST API
  • Jira integration
Jira real-time project sync
Not available
Selenium, Jenkins, UFT, JMeter, SoapUI, Ranorex, MS SQL Database, Oracle Database for test automation
Selenium, Jenkins, UFT for test automation
Bug reporting tool Capture
No native bug reporting integration
Not available
Microsoft Office and Google Sheets integrations
  • REST API
  • Jira integration
Jira real-time project sync
Selenium, Jenkins, UFT, JMeter, SoapUI, Ranorex, MS SQL Database, Oracle Database for test automation
Bug reporting tool Capture
Not available
Not available
Selenium, Jenkins, UFT for test automation
No native bug reporting integration
Microsoft Office and Google Sheets integrations
Verdict: aqua wins by extra native QA integrations

Pricing flexibility

Tools differ in how much money they request upfront and what scaling looks like. Some criteria here are:

  • Monthly or annual billing
  • Free licences for browsing or even executing tests
  • High setup costs
  • Dependency on paying for other tools

There is a major gap in flexibility between aqua and Quality Center. The gap is QCā€™s setup cost of over $50,000 that you pay every year. Billing for users is annual as well. Given the upfront costs, it is surprising that you get free manual QA licences from aqua and not Quality Center.

Free licences for manual testers
Full-price licences only
Free licences for manual testers
Full-price licences only

Verdict: aqua wins by offering free licenses and saving at least $50,000

Try aqua for free

Deployment Models

On-Premise deployment is a must in many industries, yet vendors wonā€™t explicitly say if they donā€™t offer it. Depending on your security policies and scale, deploying in a non-vendor Cloud is a beneficial option too.

  • Vendor Cloud
  • External Cloud: AWS, Azure, etc.
  • On-Premise

Even software giants drop On-Premise support to stay lean, but not aqua. The feature set keeps up with the Cloud version, as demanded by government and financial clients. Quality Center has both options as well.

  • On-Premise
GDPR-compliant aqua-hosted German Cloud
QC-hosted US Cloud
Isolated Enterprise Custom Cloud (Any Azure data centre)
Custom Cloud
  • On-Premise
GDPR-compliant aqua-hosted German Cloud
Isolated Enterprise Custom Cloud (Any Azure data centre)
QC-hosted US Cloud
Custom Cloud
Details verdict icon: Tie
Verdict: Tie

Dashboards

QA dashboards serve two vital purposes. They help the QA team track their progress, but they also make other teams aware of potential bottlenecks. At a minimum, you should be able to include any data and share dashboards with the team.

  • Use all data of the workspace
  • Create private and shared dashboards
  • Choose between various types of graphs
  • Set up KPI/values alerts that arrive as email/app notifications

Both solutions provide visual dashboards to display and slice any custom data. There are enough features to make dashboards insightful for any team member. You can also set up KPI Alerts to be notified when a key metric went out of order.

  • All data including custom fields
  • KPI Alerts
  • External dashboard sharing
  • All data including custom fields
  • KPI Alerts
  • External dashboard sharing
Details verdict icon: Tie
Verdict: Tie

Reporting

Reporting is important for both internal and external stakeholders. The goal here is to get what you need with as little or as much effort as possible. When a tool offers both a template library and rich customisation, that is a good start.

  • Access vendor-provided template library
  • Create custom layouts and save them
  • Use and transform any data
  • Apply text & image formatting
  • Add external data and imagery
  • Employ scripts and parametrisation to auto-update reports

Reporting is a strong suite for both tools as well. They have a template library, but the main strength is customisation. You can make reports with any data, use data from other solutions, and even add external images. aqua has a few more elements than Quality Center, including pivot tables.

  • Custom reports
  • Any data
  • External data & imagery
  • Text & image formatting
Custom layout
Not available
Diagrams
Not available
Drag-and-drop
Not available
Pivot tables
Not available
Scripts
Not available
Parametrisation
Not available
  • Custom reports
  • Any data
  • External data & imagery
  • Text & image formatting
Custom layout
Diagrams
Drag-and-drop
Pivot tables
Scripts
Parametrisation
Not available
Not available
Not available
Not available
Not available
Not available
Verdict: aqua wins by more report elements

User management

Precise user management is essential when working on multiple projects and/or working with external specialists. It will also save you a lot of pain from running crowd testing in the same test management solution.

  • Set default roles
  • Create custom roles
  • Apply per-user permissions
  • Authenticate users via SSO

Granular user management helps to keep information about projects on a need-to-know basis. This can be both your own preference and a regulatory requirement. Advanced user management also helps when you work with freelancers, onboard interns, or conduct user acceptance testing.

  • SSO
  • Default user roles
  • Custom roles
Individual permissions
Role permissions only
  • SSO
  • Default user roles
  • Custom roles
Individual permissions
Role permissions only
Verdict: aqua wins by individual role permissions

ALM

This is not a hard requirement, but you may be interested in a test management solution that also handles the entire product lifecycle. This is a great money saver as you need licences from fewer vendors, and the synergy should save you some hours as well.

  • Test case management
  • Requirements management
  • Defect management
  • Project management

aqua and Quality Center are QA-minded tools, but you can execute your entire project with them. Using just one tool instead of 4 is a great way to save money. This benefit, however, does not apply to Quality Center where you exceed $100,000/year with just 10 users.

  • Test case management
  • Requirements management
  • Defect management
  • Project management
  • Test case management
  • Requirements management
  • Defect management
  • Project management

Verdict: aqua wins via ALM money savings

Try aqua ALM

What people say

Here are a few things people like and dislike about both tools.

star star star star star

ā€œI was surprised to find such a comprehensive and mature tool for test management in the German market without having taken it seriously beforehand.ā€

Jƶrg GroƟmann

Head of Development at Bank 11

star star star

ā€œVery old-style interface. Not easy to design custom query for dashboarding purposesā€

Marcello M.

QA Manager at a > 1000 emp.

star star star star star

ā€œThe reporting is meaningful and provides a good basis for decisions. After the employees have used aqua, they recognize the added value very quickly.ā€

Thomas Haeske

Head of Organisation/IT at Berlin Hyp

star star star

ā€œNot user friendly, it's confusing and not always helpful. The audit trail for each defect doesn't do a good job of recording past history and hence, data becomes hard to analyse.ā€

A G2 Reviewer

Management Consulting (a > 1000 emp. Enterprise)

star star star star star

ā€œManual test cases are easily automated with aqua. Seamless integration with test automation tools helps here.ā€

Jƶrn-Hendrick Sƶrensen

Test Manager at KBA

star star star

ā€œALM hangs when we export more test cases to excel and it is slow. We never had a good experience with the support. Automation scripts kick off from ALM will be pretty slow when compared to kicking off the script directly from UFT.ā€œ

A G2 Reviewer

Computer Software (a > 1000 emp. Enterprise)

star star star star star

ā€œI was surprised to find such a comprehensive and mature tool for test management in the German market without having taken it seriously beforehand.ā€

Jƶrg GroƟmann

Head of Development at Bank 11

star star star star star

ā€œThe reporting is meaningful and provides a good basis for decisions. After the employees have used aqua, they recognize the added value very quickly.ā€

Thomas Haeske

Head of Organisation/IT at Berlin Hyp

star star star star star

ā€œManual test cases are easily automated with aqua. Seamless integration with test automation tools helps here.ā€

Jƶrn-Hendrick Sƶrensen

Test Manager at KBA

star star star

ā€œVery old-style interface. Not easy to design custom query for dashboarding purposesā€

Marcello M.

QA Manager at a > 1000 emp.

star star star

ā€œNot user friendly, it's confusing and not always helpful. The audit trail for each defect doesn't do a good job of recording past history and hence, data becomes hard to analyse.ā€

A G2 Reviewer

Management Consulting (a > 1000 emp. Enterprise)

star star star

ā€œALM hangs when we export more test cases to excel and it is slow. We never had a good experience with the support. Automation scripts kick off from ALM will be pretty slow when compared to kicking off the script directly from UFT.ā€œ

A G2 Reviewer

Computer Software (a > 1000 emp. Enterprise)

Final verdict

aqua is a proven but not stale solution. It brings actual AI innovation, has a better integrations suite, and matches Micro Focus Quality Center in all areas. Below is a summary comparison of aqua and Micro Focus Quality center.

10 years in the market, weekly feature updates
25-year-old solution, yearly releases
Bleeding-edge AI testing functionality
Traditional QA only
10+ testing integrations & REST API
2 native testing integrations + REST API
Individual permissions
Role permissions only
Timestamped item change history for compliance
Not available
Item change reversal
Not available
10 years in the market, weekly feature updates
Bleeding-edge AI testing functionality
10+ testing integrations & REST API
Individual permissions
Timestamped item change history for compliance
Item change reversal
25-year-old solution, yearly releases
Traditional QA only
2 native testing integrations + REST API
Role permissions only
Not available
Not available

Winner

Try aqua for free
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