ASI

WinRunner vs QuickTest Pro: Quick Comparison

Document Update – January 2010

January 2010 Update: Originally I wrote a document several years ago when QuickTest Professional was really hitting the market as a popular tool.  The document was written to help address the numerous questions received on what was a better solution for a company to go with – WinRunner versus QuickTest Pro.  I originally planned to update the document but then realized it was pointless; read on to understand why.

Background

WinRunner and QuickTest Professional were both created by Mercury Interactive.  QuickTest Pro was originally conceived in two unique and specific forms –

• AstraQuickTest: a functional testing tool for Web-based applications only.
• “QuickTest for SAP/R3”: a functional testing tool for SAP.

In both cases, the tool was very similar in UI design, features and method of implementation.  Due to the success and appeal it was determined to expand the capabilities to be more diversified instead of being so specific to an environment, Astra only worked for Web applications used through a browser and “QuickTest for SAP/R3” was only for SAP apps.  Why not be more like WinRunner and support the numerous other technologies?  So they did and developed QuickTest Professional.   Mercury Interactive then decided to eliminate WinRunner, because why should they have two tools that basically did the same thing.  I was part of the Mercury BizDev Team and I was the primary presenter that conducted the “Early Access Program” that introduced QuickTest Pro from a Marketing angle and Technical Training seminar to a select audience of Customers (50 companies were represented), select Business Partners and senior technical Mercury Engineers.  This 3 daylong seminar introduced the new QuickTest Pro application and Mercury’s strategy of replacing WinRunner (WR) within 1 year with QuickTest Pro (QTP).  Everyone loved QTP, its capabilities and implementation strategy – however there was some significant resistance from customers on the idea of eliminating WinRunner and its support after companies had already invested so much time and effort in its implementation.

Due to this resistance, Mercury decided to delay the “replacement” approach and keep the two tools on separate life-span tracks.  WinRunner would be kept alive due to the large quantity of existing customer test scripts created in the tool, and customers would have the choice of continuing to run and maintain them in WinRunner, or they could now call the WinRunner scripts from within a QuickTest Pro script.  At this point, for the most part WinRunner went into a “maintenance mode” where very few new features & improvements were made and all the significant development efforts were put into QuickTest Pro.

July 25, 2006 – HP formally announces acquisition of Mercury Interactive.

January 1, 2011 – HP has announced that January 1, 2011 will be the official “end of life” for WinRunner.  At that point WinRunner will no longer be supported and QuickTest Pro will be the only Functional Testing tool offered by HP (besides LoadRunner (load/stress/performance testing), SiteScope (server monitoring) and the Quality Center (test management)).

Comparison

At this point in the original document there was a series of sections that compared the differences between WR and QTP.  Today that section becomes irrelevant for the most part because QuickTest Pro has been improved to handle all the features that WinRunner has.  The table has now been turned to where QuickTest Pro can do everything WinRunner can do, plus more.  So as you can tell at this point in the document there is no need to conduct a comparison anymore because there is no reason to go with WinRunner.  So the comparison can be eliminated and the conclusion to go with QuickTest Pro based on two major points:

1. QuickTest Pro can actually do more than WinRunner today.
2. WinRunner has a defined “end of life” in one year as of the writing of this document – January 1, 2011.