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DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

Automation Testing in 2022

What are the latest trends of Automation Testing in 2022?

 

Technologies are emerging, business environments are becoming competitive, and modern enterprises are trying different ways to stay ahead of their competition through innovative approaches. Of the many resources companies opt for, automated testing software services are one provision that companies are keeping an eye on. 

The remote working culture has directly impacted the software industries in sharing documents and ideas at full tilt with the help of digital mediums. Test automation is no different. Now, automation testing is also allowing companies to run faster release cycles and improve customer satisfaction. 

While organizations can enjoy the benefit of the reduced time cycles of software releases, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Automation testing offers a myriad of benefits during the software companies’ transition from traditional to agile settings. Do you think it is just DevOps and Agile are the buzzwords in modern software development? Well, NO! Test automation has become a buzzword in a fast-moving pace of software development. As per the latest studies, it is predicted that the software testing services market will grow by $34.49 billion during 2021-2025 at a CAGR of 12%.

If you tell us that testing is about finding bugs or issues in a software product, we have a little more to add to it- testing is also about proactively discovering what can go wrong and safe proofing the product against all the odds, and making it function properly.

The automation testing practices are picking up pace quite surprisingly and testers are quickly and efficiently executing ways to ensure the product meets the expected quality, security, and compliance requirements. Which are the top automation tests in 2022? Let us have a look.

Top Automation Testing in 2022

Automation testing offers several advantages like improved accuracy, wider test coverage, early-stage bug detection, cost-effectiveness, and improved app performance. However, it is crucial to consider certain metrics like platform compatibility, test creation methods, operating system compatibility, versatility, price, and data formats to fetch and feed data. Keeping these points in mind, let us now move on to the top automation testing trends in 2022…

Agile and DevOps

In Agile, testing is a fundamental part of the software development process. DevOps combines Development (Dev) and Operations (Ops) for shortening the software development life cycle and managing end to end processes. Modern enterprises are adopting Agile and DevOps processes to reduce the software lifecycle starting from development and operation to enhance the quality of the released products. The latest trends point to the fact that companies are largely adopting Agile and DevOps for developing and delivering quality products faster.

QAOps

QAOps is a combination of Quality Assurance (QA) and IT operations (Ops). with utmost quality, it ensures faster delivery of software products to market. Through this, the QA tasks will be integrated into the Continuous Integration/ Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) so that there will be more collaboration between test engineers and developers. It is presumed that after DevOps practices, QAOps will be the next big thing for modern companies in the coming days. Hence, companies have already started equipping their QA professionals with QAOps processes.

Codeless Automated Testing

The formation of test cases can be accelerated by further catalyzing test automation with the help of artificial intelligence and visual modeling. This means that testers can execute test cases scenarios with zero coding knowledge, and can therefore reduce the time invested on recurring test cases. It offers many advantages like fast test case formation, flattening the learning curve for testers, and accelerating the automation process.

Scriptless Test Automation

If testers spent time studying new and complex programming languages while working on the backlogs, it can be quite toilsome. Through scriptless automation tools, testers will be able to automate reusable and resilient tests with the support of AI and ML combined resulting in self-correction mechanisms and consistent results. Scriptless test automation is very user-friendly, provides faster results, reduces the time and effort required for maintenance, and fills the potential technical-level gaps of the testers.

Selenium 4

Some companies use Selenium over other automation testing tools over Agile and DevOps processes because it suits best for their software projects to release products faster to market. As an open-source test automation tool, Selenium automates web applications. Its unique features make it the favorite tool for testers and QA teams compared to other automation tools. It supports multiple programming languages and multiple operating systems and even facilitates cross-browser compatibility testing. Of the many releases, Selenium 4 (alpha) was released during the last quarter of 2022 and has had the special attention of testers. It comes with multitudes of features like relative locators, open-source chromium driver support for Edge browser, selenium grid, docker support, and much more!

Is Key Test Automation Trends the Future of Testing?

Unquestionably yes! When the trends keep unfolding at a faster pace, companies must keep up with the future of testing a step ahead. The new pace in which new trends unwrap. The current trends like AI-powered test automation, Self-healing tools, scoreless testing, futuristic integrations, and advanced CI/CD pipelines are a few of them that companies should keep a note of.

Endnote

Apart from the above-mentioned trends, there are other trends too like Big Data testing, IoT test automation, AI and ML, Robotic Process Automation, Shift left testing, Blockchain testing among others that is gaining widespread attention.

With the trends that are gaining much traction in software testing, companies need to focus more on ensuring the quality of the software product by utilizing paid or open-source tools, whichever fits rightly for their requirements. Ultimately, the aim should be to roll high-quality software products to the market.

These trends surely have a huge pretense on the test automation business. As the industries sail through the year 2022, these are some of the top test automation trends to bear in mind. While certain of the trends discussed here are not visible in the man stream yet, some are already huge topics of discussion. But one thing is for sure- all of them have their pivotal extents to showcase in the coming months!

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DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

React Native in 2022

What to Expect with React Native in 2022?

 

If you are looking for an application development journey that gives the best customer experience, we would suggest that you choose React Native! Yes, you heard it right! Choose React Native!

 

In 2021, the software industry witnessed some evolution in terms of hybrid app development to rationalize the development cycles and user experience. React Native helped developers with building complex hybrid apps, with advanced features and the capability to dive into native applications on each platform. 

 

According to a Stack Overflow Developer survey conducted in 2021, React Native was ranked at the 5th position with 16.48% of professionals preferring it to other mobile frameworks.


If you ask us, it is still one of the most preferred products among frameworks, libraries, and tools. 

 

As 2022 has set its wheel rolling, we thought of sharing some insightful information regarding the latest React Native trends, its current state, and some important software products build using it. 


2021 Release Updates of React Native

 

The release of React Native 0.66 is the most awaited news this year.

 

The development team of React Native announced the release of React Native 0.66 which is compatible with Android 12 and iOS 15 versions.  It also has certain feature fixes and other important updates for easing the developers’ effort.

 

What are the other important features and support tools that React Native is offering in 2022? Let us have a look!

 

2022 Expectations of React Native

 

The React Native framework spikes the following expectations in the year 2022:

 

 

  • Native Modules

 

 

It is expected that React Native will pivot around native modules for cross-platform applications, which include:

  • Type Safety, as it improves the security of the codes shared between JS and Native frameworks. 
  • Less Overhead as it will reduce the excess callback between JS and Native frameworks.
  • Faster initialization of application loading to improve existing startup troubles with React Native apps.

 

 

  • Fabric

 

 

Fabric is a project undertaken by Facebook that has the potential to change the future of React Native. Fabric is the key to improving the interoperability of React Native community with other platforms than normal iOS and Android. This will help in reducing the application architecture overloads, and the applications will run quicker than the conventional cross-platform ones.

 

Single thread: To enable communications between users and the system, there is a channel named thread. Each user requests there will be different threads, and Fabric will help the UI to communicate through callbacks via JavaScript.

 

Async bliss: Asynchronous rendering functions are common with Node JS in the JavaScript setting. With Fabric, asynchronous rendering will become reality in React Native future releases.

 

Native Bridging: Shared code and native environment have certain gaps when it comes to cross-platform applications. To bridge this gap through improved debugging and data flows, Fabric will provide simplified native solutions between frameworks and JavaScript. This single-threaded approach will augment user experience through better interactions, thus giving:

  • The native bridge between JS and operating system platforms. 
  • Highly reactive user interfaces.
  • Improved code sharing with debugging capabilities
  • Fast mobile application loading.

 

 

  • New API

 

Facebook will use earlier releases of React Native like Fabric and Native modules to create init paths. This will improve the application speed, thus facilitating faster loading time and faster apps for your business. This unquestionably is an update that can change the plot of React Native in software development positively. 

Another crucial update in React Native is the JavaScript Interface, for interacting with the JavaScript engine. This enables developers to connect with engines while writing C++ code. Developers can even use APIs like JSC and Hermes and thus use them for:

  • Framing JavaScript runtime.
  • JS package download.
  • JS and C++ callback functions.
  • Creating and accessing JS objects through C++.

 

Business Advantages of Using React Native in 2022

Application development using native languages like Java, Objective C, and C++ is time-consuming, but mastering these languages is worth a fortune. 

 

In the coming years, it is expected that more businesses will prefer React native to other frameworks for app development. React Native will help businesses in proceeding with quick cross-platform app development, and here are other reasons why React Native is going to be the most favored framework for app development in 2022:

High Performance

React Native might not be as fast as true native applications built-in native languages like Java, Objective-C, and C++. But when it comes to native app performance, it will be top-notch as far as native components like image, view, and text are concerned. React Native is not HTML5, but it is more of a hybrid or mobile, or web app that can optimize your code. This can power your abilities to maximize the app performance by creating functionalities using Native codes and some React Native.

 

Robust User Interface:

UIs can be taken to the next level with engaging features and pre-built declarative components like Picker, Button, Slider, Switch, etc. The developer can create their own components using TouchableNativeFeedback and TouchableOpacity. Furthermore, the iOS and Android components catalyze these React Native-based apps in those devices.

 

Faster application Development

The components provided by React Native like, text, images, keyboard input, scrollable lists, progress bar, animations, clipboards, links, and others speed up the application development process. Hot Reloading favors the reloading of the application without compiling all the codes.

 

Ease of Maintenance

When the Native framework is growing, it is then the API of each framework that is also growing. Applications that are built on native platforms require less maintenance and the agility factor of React Native keeps app maintenance simple, effortless, and cost-effective.

 

Endnote:

Without any doubt, React Native traction looks affirmative in 2022. The fact that Facebook is the support company of React Native makes it look more reliable in the forthcoming years.

 

Quick addressing of the users’ queries and community suggestions are making it even more dearly to companies. Constant releases makes it problem-free at any given point of time.

 

The architecture is constantly being modernized, and is made lightweight yet robust through reduced API surface area.This will help in accelerating the speed of apps created using this library.

 

As already mentioned, Fabric can revamp the framework, and the strengthening support community for React Native points to the fact that React Native will witness a canny 2022! 

Categories
DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

Modern Front Stack with React JS

Things You Don’t Want to Miss about Modern Front Stack with React JS!

React JS is one of the preeminently used JavaScript libraries for developing front-end or Graphic User Interface (GUI) for web applications. It will be very helpful and important for full-stack Java developers. React JS, developed and supported by Facebook has fattened its demand and usage in recent years. It has become the de-facto library for component-based GUI development. Though there are other front-end frameworks and tools available in the market, React JS’s component-based GUI made them unique and different from them.

When a developer starts working with React JS, he should be familiar with build tools and package managers.

Some of the package managers used are:

npm

npm is one of the largest software registries. npm is used to share and borrow packages, and to manage private development too. 

Npm consists of 3 distinct components:

  • The website

Discover packages, set up profiles, and manage other features of the npm experience. 

  • Command-line interface (CLI)

CLI runs from a terminal, and it is how most developers react with npm.

  • Registry

It is a large public database of JavaScript.

 

      Advantages of npm

  • Download standalone tools anytime
  • Share code with any npm user
  • Manage and control different versions of the code
  • Limit code access to specific developers
  • Run packages without downloading using npx

yarn

Yarn is one of the package managers for your code. It helps to maintain and share the code with other developers within your team.

     Advantages of yarn

  • Yarn helps to share the code with other developers very quickly, securely, and also reliably
  • Developers can use the solution of other developers and make software development very easier

Task runners

Task runners add support for npm scripts defined in package.json directly in Visual studio’s task runner explorer.

 Advantages of task runners

  • Automation of numerous development tasks
  • Spinning up development servers
  • Compiling code
  • Bind any task to certain events that happen in the Visual studio like Build, Clean, and Project Open.

Gulp

Gulp is also an open-source tool used with Node and its package manager to install gulp plugins. It is used to automate repetitive tasks in web development. Gulp reads files as streams and connects the streams to different tasks.

 Advantages of gulp

  • Spinning up a web browser
  • Reloading a browser automatically when a file is saved

Webpack

Webpack is also called a module bundler because it helps you to compile JavaScript modules. It can perform many operations like bundling your resources and generating a single file that runs your application.

Advantages of Webpack

  • Multi-process parallel running support
  • Caching capability
  • Improved build performance by 45%

 

Rollup

Rollup is a module bundler for JavaScript which compiles small pieces of code into larger applications or a library. It is mainly used for libraries.

Rollup has node polyfills for import/export functions. 

 

Parcel

Parcel is a zero-configuration build tool for Node, JavaScript, SASS, SVG, Vue, Coffeescript, and many other tools for web development.

Advantages of Parcel

  • Includes development server out of the box
  • Automatically updates your code in your browser
  • 10-20x faster than other JavaScript-based tools
  • Reliable caching

Styling and State Management 

Styling is one of the important parts while using React JS in web and app development. A front-end developer like React developer should be very familiar and learn CSS Frameworks, CSS Architecture, CSS in JS. Learning Bootstrap, one of the most critical CSS Frameworks, is nowadays very commonly used for React development. 

Like HTML and JavaScript, CSS is one of the core technologies used in web design and web development. CSS helps to do advanced styling with responsive design. The world’s best responsive websites are HTML5 and CSS3. The best CSS Frameworks used are Flexbox, Grid, and SAAS to design modern websites.

Redux is another javascript library for managing application state. It is used with other JavaScript libraries like Angular and React JS for developing modern front end applications. 

TypeCheckers

React has some built-in type checking capabilities, which will reduce accidental errors like storing integer variables into String or vice versa. This will make your code more stable and readable. TypeScript is one of the JavaScript extensions which use the power of String, integer, boolean, and other static types. TypeScript compiler generates JavaScript code that can be run on any browser.

API clients

APIs like REST and Graph QL will help to communicate with other applications while using React JS. Here are a few API clients available for React developers:

REST

  • Fetch
  • SuperAgent
  • Axios

Graph QL

  • Apollo
  • Relay
  • URL

Apollo provides an easy way to use Graph QL to build client applications. The client is created in such a way that it would help to build UI very quickly to fetch data with Graph QL and can be used with any JavaScript front end.

Utility Libraries

Utility libraries are available for React developers which will make the development easier and quicker. Some of the utility libraries used for React development are:

  • Lodash
  • Moment
  • Class names
  • Numeral
  • RxJS
  • Ramda

Testing

Testing is one of the important things for React developers which they should overlook on learning libraries to accomplish quality and stability during React testing. 

We have libraries for Unit testing, Integration testing, and E2E testing.

The list of libraries are:

Unit testing

  • Jest
  • Enzyme
  • Sinon
  • Mocha
  • Chai
  • AVA
  • Tape

E2E testing

  • Selenium
  • Cypress
  • Puppeteer
  • Cucumber.js
  • Nightwatch.js

Mobile

React Native is quickly becoming the most standard and common way to develop mobile applications in JavaScript. This will give the app a native look and feel. Using React Native, a single codebase can be shared across multiple platforms. 

React Native helps to create truly Native apps and doesn’t compromise on end users’ experience. It provides a core set of platform-agnostic native components like View, text, and Image that map directly to platforms’ native UI building blocks. React components interact with native APIs via React’s declarative UI paradigm and JavaScript. 

Conclusion

React development has reached and become the future of web app development with its versatility and ease of use. React saves time and money on your development because it’s component-based and can break any interface into reusable components. React also helps to build dynamic web applications with less effort and time. Moreover it increases the performance, and indexes web apps that also enhances UI/UX too.

 

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DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

Cypress- A visually Aiding Automated Test Framework 

Wouldn’t it be great to have a visual aid while running tests for your projects? Well, Cypress is one such feature-rich test runner that can create test reports and save videos and screenshots while running tests. But companies currently working on or planning to switch to Cypress must know the profound capabilities of the framework such as:

  • It can run tests in the same browser window as the application itself.
  • It can test the network control and confirm whether the application is responding to periodic network requests.
  • It has advanced debugging abilities.
  • The same installation and run commands can work on most CI systems.
  • As an open-source open platform, Cypress can extend test coverage and velocity of test execution.
  • It can visually test the feel of the app across different platforms.
  • Cypress can be extended using plug-ins. 

On that note, we hope to give you a basic understanding of Cypress and the scope it offers for your projects through this article.

What is Cypress?

Cypress is a test automation framework that is by far the fastest-growing cross-browser frontend developer-friendly one. It has a strong support community and a company that is capable of providing additional operational services. This rest framework is effectively mending the gaps in cross-browser testing space.

What is the Cypress framework?

A JavaScript-based end-to-end testing framework built on Mocha, Cypress runs on browsers making asynchronous testing seamless and convenient. Cypress utilizes BDD and TDD assertions library alongside a browser to couple with any JavaScript testing framework. Cypress has the following features developed particularly for this framework namely:

Automatic waiting: You need not declare any implicit or explicit waits as Cypress waits for the elements to become visible, complete the animation, load the DON, finish the XHR and AJAX calls, among others.

Real-time reloads: Cypress has the intelligent feature of tester running the tests again after saving a test file. Since the tester saves the files, it immediately and automatically triggers the run next to the browser. Hence you can forget about the manual triggering of the run.

Features of Cypress Framework

  1. Cypress can execute the test command automatically and is assertive when it comes to executing the next commands waiting to be run.
  2. Debugging is made easy by capturing screenshots during test cases.
  3. It provides interactive test execution with Test Runner and logs helps in more efficient test debugging.
  4. The architectural framework is different from other test frameworks and facilitates more reliable and swifter test execution for the users. 

How to install Cypress Framework?

You can download, install, and configure the Cypress framework in your system using the npm package manager as given below:

npm install cypress –save-dev

What are the components of the Cypress Framework?

The Cypress framework has the following components involved while executing test cases:

Spec File: It contains the It(){} blocks from where the test execution starts. A single Spec file will have one describe {} block in which it{} blocks are included.

Page Object File: Thai file lists out the business logic of the tests. Here the actual Cypress commands interact with the real application.

Page Selector File: It contains the actual locators of the UI elements in the real application.

Constants File: It contains the constants held throughout the test files.

Cypress Framework Workflow

  1. Open the application for which the test case is to be written.
  2. Find the locators or selectors appropriate for a particular flow of the test to be run, and integrate those with the Page Selector file.
  3.  In the Cypress syntax, the user should add the test steps in command forms under methods in the Page Object file.
  4. In the actual Spec file, invoke the page object method. 
  5. If the user is executing the Cypress tests as part of the project structure, then the ng tool can be used for running the tests and the steps will be as follows:
    1. Execute the test suite using the ng e2e command.
    2. If the user wants to execute a specific test, run e2e projectName spec= Spec File Path.

What are the Advantages of the Cypress Framework?

  • Execution of steps is quick, easy to set up
  • Time taken for writing tests is much less compared to other frameworks. 
  • Cypress is easily integrable with various CI tools for execution with command-line options. 
  • If the test fails, the user can refer to the screenshots it captures at different stages of test runs, thereby facilitating easy debugging.
  • Once changes are made to the test, Cypress automatically reloads Test Runner.

Bottom line: Reasons to say YES to Cypress

Cypress is easy to use for developers and QAs who are knowledgeable in JavaScript or TypeScript. As the tests run inside the browser, it possesses the added advantage of higher speed and debugging capabilities. While tests are run, Cypress uses a node server as its proxy so that there is no gap in communicating the tasks to be performed on each other’s behalf ( for example, mocking network requests from tests and more).

Cypress supports front-line browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and even Microsoft Edge browsers. It has a framework-agonistic test runner and hence can work with popular web development frameworks like Vue.JS, React, Angular, Elm and can test any site easily. Cypress easily fits into the CI/CD pipeline for running the end-to-end tests as part of the development cycle through pull requests and other triggered events thereby easing the developers’ and testers’ efforts.

Cypress is a shrewd test runner that is feature-rich and is capable of creating test reports, saving videos and screenshots during the test runs. If there is a requirement of running tests at scale, storing, and displaying test results and integrations with source code providers, it can be permitted by companies like Cypress.io (the administrative team of open-source Cypress test runner), Perfecto, AWS Amplify, and Browserstack. 

Want to maximize the value this framework offers? Apart from the above-mentioned capabilities of Cypress, there are many more advanced abilities that Cypress can offer. In the coming sections, we believe you will have a better understanding of how the power of this framework can be leveraged. 

Categories
DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

The best UI Development Tools to watch out for in 2022!

There are a lot of UI web development tools that help developers to build attractive layouts and UI designs and apps quickly. There is many front-end web development software that helps developers to fasten the development work. So to understand which UI tool is best suited for your software project is crucial because the better the designing of the interfaces, the more digestible the UI looks.

What are the features to look for in UI development tools?

  • Is the learning curve reasonable for your developers to choose the tool provided it has enough tutorials?
  • How flexible is the tool when it comes to connecting with other platforms and applications?
  • Does the tool have add-ons for customizing it according to the projects you develop?
  • Are there folders that make storing and finding UI libraries for different projects easier?
  • Does it support sandboxes that facilitate isolated design features?
  • How good are the collaboration features of the tool that makes team collaboration and effort possible even if they don’t share a physical space and work remotely?
  • Does it have a design system that serves as a single source of truth?
  • Does the version control let you compare differences fairly?
  • Does it come with a toolkit that gives a primary understanding of how the components will look like in web applications, iOS, or Android devices?
  • Can the accessibility tests make your design easier for making it usable for more people?

This might not be the complete list of features that you should look for, but it is a little something that you can start with for finding the best UI development tools. Let us now discuss some of the best UI development tools that are on the developers’ most-liked list currently and the features why they are so in the below sections:

AngularJS

AngularJS is one of the most used and must-have tools for front-end developers. It is an Open-source web application framework. It helps to expand the HTML syntax for web applications. AngularJS eases the front-end development process by developing an accessible, readable, and expressive environment. 

Features:

  • It is open-source, easily available, and used by most UI developers for front-end development.
  • It helps to develop RICH internet applications.
  • It offers the option to write client-side applications using JavaScript using MVC.
  • It automatically handles JavaScript code appropriate for each browser.

Npm

Npm is the Node Package manager for JavaScript. Npm helps to find the packages of reusable code and configure them with stability and in different ways. Npm uses a command-line utility for interacting with a said repository that aids in the package. 

Features:

  • Find and reuse over 4,70,000 free code packages in the Registry
  • Whip up code detection and reuse within the development team.
  • Report and manage access to a namespace
  • Organize public and private code using the same workflow

TypeScript

TypeScript is an open-source front-end scripting language. It is a syntactical superset of JavaScript which adds optional static typing. TypeScript is one of the best UI developer tools used for the development of large applications and compiles to JavaScript. 

Features:

  • TypeScript supports other JS libraries.
  • It can be used in any environment that runs JavaScript.
  • It can also support definition files that can contain type information of existing JavaScript libraries, like C/C++ header files.
  • It is compatible across different browsers, OSes, and devices.

Elfsight

Elfsight is one of the best UI web development tools which helps to enhance and improve the UI design without any code change. It also helps to customize and redesign websites with less effort.

Features:

  • Helps to create form formats for a survey, quiz, feedback, etc…
  • Add chat facility to websites and apps.
  • Show customer reviews from Instagram, Facebook, Google, etc.
  • Embed content from Twitter, Facebook. 

MyFonts

MyFonts is one of the main tools which are used by graphic designers and UX/UI       developers.  It helps to navigate and find correct filters for the fonts needed from thousands and thousands of fonts.

 Features:

  • It helps the developer to find the perfect font for any visual creative task.
  • Developers can browse and find any fonts based on popularity, design, and category.
  • Developers can find a wide variety of fonts with the help of MyFonts.
  • MyFonts provide the largest selection of professional fonts for any website or application.

Creative Tim

Creative Tim offers Bootstrap-related design elements which help to complete development work very quickly and easily. Developers can create web and mobile apps using this tool.  

 Features:

  • Creative Tim helps to save time and reduce the development cost. 
  • It helps to easily use Admin templates
  • Admin dashboards help to save a large amount of time.
  • Provides pre-Made sections and elements

CodeKit

    CodeKit is a front-end tool that helps to build websites faster. It integrates, optimizes, and checks JavaScript syntaxes. It also enhances and improves images.

Features:

  • CSS changes can be integrated without the need of reloading the entire page.
  • Merge scripts to reduce HTTPS requests.
  • Optimize code to reduce file sizes.
  • It works automatically with all languages without trouble.

WebStorm

WebStorm provides smart coding assistance for JavaScript. It also provides advanced coding assistance for Angular, React.js, and Meteo. WebStorm helps developers to code more expeditiously for big projects.

Features:

  • It delivers built-in tools for debugging, testing, and tracing client-side and Node.js applications.
  • It can be integrated with popular command-line tools for web development.
  • Spy-js built-in tool allows tracking JavaScript code.
  • WebStorm provides a unified user interface for working with many popular version control systems.
  • It is exceptionally customizable to ideally suit various coding styles.
  • It offers a built-in debugger for client-side code and Node.js apps.

Sass

Sass is one of the most proven, dependable, stable, and powerful CSS extension tools. It helps to extend the functionality of an existing CSS of a site like variables, legacy, and abide with ease.

Features:

  • It is a simple, easy-to-use UI tool to write any code.
  • Sass aids language extensions such as variables, nesting, and mixins.
  • Many useful features for manipulating colors and other values.
  • Advanced features like control directives for libraries
  • Sass offers well-formatted, configurable, and customizable output

Bottom line:

This list of UI tools can do the basic math of your research but surely each one of these offers a unique and coherent approach for creating a flawless UI. Make sure you weigh in more factors like requirements and pricing to choose which tool is the best fit. If you can’t decide on which is the best tool for your prototypes, wireframe for creating a seamless UI, please note that we are here to show you how!

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DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

Why is Nest.JS your efficient tool for the backend framework?

Is your project about to start rolling? We thought of easing your decision process a little bit by throwing some light on Nest.JS. We know that Nest.JS is not a single-stop solution for your software project. But if you understand Nest.JS better, we are sure that you can have a better idea of where to apply Nest.JS and where not to!

While choosing a framework, there are several factors that you should consider. For example, team expertise, problem to be solved, the expected scale, and much more.

For a microservice architecture-based project, Nest.JS can be ‘a too early’ consideration because of the factors mentioned just above. Except for the fact that microservices require communication between each other and monolithic does not, the Nest.JS framework can be used for either of the architectures and is not going to be a problem from the programming standpoint.

Let’s dive into the details of why Nest.JS is idle for your project by starting with the basics.

What is Nest.JS?

Nest.JS is a framework that can be used for building efficient, scalable Node.JS server-side applications. It makes use of progressive JavaScript and is built using and fully supports TypeScript along with elements of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), Functional Programming (FP), and Functional Reactive Programming (FRP). Even though Nest.JS fully supports TypeScript, developers are still enabled with the provision to write codes in pure Javascript.

Nest.JS utilizes strong HTTP server frameworks like Express, by default and is configurable to use Fastify too, by choice. Nest gives a level of abstraction above the common Node.JS frameworks and also reveals the APIs to the developers directly. This way developers will have the liberty to choose large scores of modules that are available for the underlying platform.

What are the building blocks of Nest.JS?

  • Modules: It can array the codes and divide features into logical reusable units. Grouped TypeScript files are tagged with ‘@Module’ decorator to provide metadata Nest needs to organize the application structure.
  • Providers/Services: It is a design used for abstracting any form of complexity and logic. It can be created or infused into controllers or other providers.
  • Controllers: It processes incoming requests and returns corresponding responses to the client-side of the application like calling APIs.

What are the Features that make Nest.JS inevitable?

The features that made Nest.JS inevitable during the recent years are its incredible features and those are:

  • It uses TypeScript, a strongly typed language that is a superset of JavaScript.
  • Easy to learn and master the language. 
  • Easy to use.
  • CLI is robust and hence boosts productivity and simplifies development. 
  • Access to detailed and updated documentation.
  • Active code base development and maintenance.
  • It is MIT-licensed and open source.
  • Easily integrable with common technologies like TypeORM, Mongoose, GraphQL, Logging, validation, Caching, WebSockets, and many more and hence support several Nest. JS-specific modules.
  • Simple unit testing applications
  • Applicable for both monolithic and microservice architecture.

Why should Node.JS be opted?

For a very long period, Java was the most favored programming language for creating business applications. It was only recently that the limelight shifted to Node.JS. It has a high speed and drew the developers’ attention very quickly as it supported writing frontend and backend in the same programming language. Since Nest.JS is the rapidly growing framework of Node.JS, let us see why Nest.JS should be chosen over your existing framework.

Node.JS should be opted because:

  • It is a quick and efficient development process.
  • It is highly scalable and favors efficient maintenance of applications.
  • It has a unique position in the front-end and mid-tier development that many other languages could not fit in.
  • It uses TypeScript and therefore will ensure that it remains relevant in a fast-evolving JavaScript landscape and guess developers minimal context switching.
  • It backs the well-known transport layers for interservice communication like Redis pub/sub, NATS, MQTT, RabbitMQ, Kafka, gPRC, among others.
  • It strongly ascertains the project structure, common design patterns, best approaches, and other contributing factors because of the Angular-inspired framework traits.
  • It offers a variety of tools like CLI, project generator, decorators, interfaces, cache, logging, authorization, etc.
  • It can help build REST APIs, MVC applications, microservices, GraphQL applications, Web Sockets or CLIs, and CRON jobs.
  • Its structure and IoC mechanism allow conveniently plugging any library and therefore can be tagged as highly extensible.
  • It provides drivers for the topmost databases and enables developers to write their drivers for special databases.
  • It can manage dependencies and isolate modules from each other.
  • It is independent of different types of utils or boilerplate codes.
  • It is built for large-scale enterprise applications.
  • It uses Node.JS, TypeScript, and robust architectural patterns.
  • It has an Angular-based structure for application and this structure is very simple so that attention can be concentrated on the design of endpoints and their consumers and not the application structure.
  • The application will be scalable and highly testable because the developers are using only a specific architecture through the introduction of Angular-like modules, services, and controllers.
  • It supplies testing tools and techniques for writing efficient unit tests.
  • Its documentation is very extensive and has a very wide support community.

Endnote:

If you are looking for a great head start, go for Nest.JS. Set up an app and there, you are ready to go! Right from the very beginning and during the stages of defining the proper app structure, the boost this framework gives is quite impressive. The modern solutions and technologies that Nest.JS uses make the applications it creates easily maintainable and durable. It allows connecting with GraphQL, WebSockets, or used for building microservices. Now you know why Nest.JS is an excellent framework and if you think of upgrading or developing a new app, don’t think twice about Nest.JS. If you need a proficient team who can help you with upgrading an existing app or building an app from scratch, our team at Webdura is all set to help you.

 

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DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

Unit Testing in 2022: Your assertive defensive way to do software testing!

In an agile process, unit testing is an out-of-the-box approach that is assumed by the software development team to test codes before releasing them. Unit testing is what makes dev testing intact in an agile process.

If you want to develop applications with an edge, then the development team and the testing team have to work collaboratively and for this unit testing is inevitable.

What is unit testing?

Unit testing is a type of testing that primarily tests the smallest testable part of an application- a unit or an application- in software. The unit can be a function, an object, a method, a procedure, or a module in software that is being tested. By processing multiple inputs, it generates a single output. Unit testing is referred to in different ways in different contexts which means in procedural programming, a unit is termed as an individual program whereas, in object-centric programming, it is referred to as Base or Superclass, Abstract Class, Derived or Child class, etc. Unit testing has a ground-rule which means, it works concerning the white box technique, and it best tests frameworks, drivers, stubs and mocks to test software units.

Unit testing is beneficial in several ways. It can improve the quality of a code, support the reusability and reliability of a code, ease documentation, enable hassle-free integration alongside other benefits.

In SDLC, unit testing is carried out by developers to ensure whether software units meet the customer requirements justly.

How can you streamline unit testing?

When unit testing goes wrong, it can cost your project a certain cost, time, and effort wastage. Based on our certain previous experiences, we believe the following is one checklist that you can follow to ensure that your unit testing is streamlined:

  • Do not test integrations, but test a single unit of code using unit testing
  • For easy writing and maintenance, go for small and clear unit tests with clear labels.
  • If a unit test is intended for a specific unit of code, it should not get affected once moved to another part of the software. 
  • Unit tests should be quick and reusable

What are the objectives of unit testing?

Unit testing is carried out with the following objectives:

  • Isolating a section of code.
  • Verifying code correctness.
  • Testing of every function and procedure.
  • Saving costs by identifying and fixing bugs early in the development cycle.
  • Assisting developers in identifying codebase quickly and enabling them to make necessary changes as quickly as possible.
  • Helping in code reuse.

Which are the best practices in unit testing?

Every condition need not have a test case, but it is important to ensure that the tests do not affect the system as a whole. Make sure that before bug fixing, you note down the test that exposes the defects. Here are some of the best practices in unit testing:

  1. Write strong codes, broken codes can fail your tests or in the worst case, fail to execute.
  2. Write understandable codes for making debugging easy for developers.
  3. Single cases are more understandable and easily debuggable than multiple cases.
  4. Automate tests and make sure of continuous delivery and integration.
  5. Give priority to test cases that affect the system behavior and not for all conditions.
  6. Make sure that your test cases are not interdependent.

Note: For instance, say you have a database-dependent code instead of writing a case to test a class, create an abstract interface around that database and implement an interface with a mock 0bject.

  1. Apply loop condition for test cases and be certain that it covers all the paths.
  2. Go for frequent and continuous test cases.
  3. Cache appropriately or else the bug will reappear. 
  4. Make your test suites more comprehensive.
  5. Before fixing defects, write the test cases.
  6. Test cases should verify behavior and it should also ensure code performance.

A briefing on best tools used for unit testing:

JTest: It is an automated JS software and static analysis tool for unit test case generation and execution. It concentrates on business logic and facilitates meaningful test suites. 

JUnit: It is a free tool used for Java programming language and favors assertions to identify test methods. It tests data first and inserts it into a code.

NUnit: It is an open-source testing framework applied for all .NET languages for writing scripts manually. It also supports parallel data-driven tests. 

JMockit: An open-source testing tool, JMockit is a code coverage tool for mocking API with recording and syntax authentication. It facilitates line coverage, path coverage, and data coverage.

EMMA: EMMA is an open-source testing framework for analysis and report of Java-based languages that supports method coverage, line coverage, and basic block coverage.

PHPUnit: It is a unit testing tool for PHP language that uses predefined assertions to make the software system behave in a predetermined manner.

Summary of unit testing tools based on programming languages:

  • Java: JUnit
  • PHP: PHPUnit
  • C++: UnitTedt++ and Google C++
  • .NET: NUnit
  • Python: py.test

Conclusion

If your software development demands testing to test every function individually, then unit testing must come into your purview. Unit testing is always preferable for software development as it considerably reduces the time and cost consumed for detecting and fixing bugs by regularly testing the functionalities, which otherwise would happen only in the later stages of software development.

Unit testing, like any other testing framework, has certain disadvantages. However, with consistency and stringent steps assumed during the software development stages, these demerits can be overcome.

In short, we can assure you that this kind of testing done on each functionality saves your time and cost. If you go for acceptance testing, then the cost incurred will be more than the unit testing approach. While testing your software product, it is best to create mock objects for satisfying the dependency of a specific method or function.

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DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

Rest API Vs GraphQL- What is ideal for your Software Development?

Is REST getting downcasted amidst the preferences of API designers changing to GraphQL for selecting architectural styles for API design? You might say so because trends are showing that GraphQL is gaining popularity at a very good rate compared to REST.The raging argument between the performance of REST and GraphQL is perplexing companies’ decision in what to choose for creating or using API. 

While some say that REST is the standardized API designing tool some developers opine that GraphQL should be more appropriate for API designing as it overcomes the flaws present in REST. REST and GraphQL facilitate data retrieval, the only difference is that the former is considered to be a traditional one. Through this article, we are hoping to take you through the differences between REST and GraphQL, and determining which will work better for your needs!

What is REST API?

REST (Representational State Transfer) is a software architectural style that comes with a uniform and predefined set of stateless operations that enables API designers to access and manipulate web data. REST generally deals with media components, files or hardware devices.

In REST, API functionality is exposed as resources that can be service, data or an object that clients will have access to. These functionalities-turned-resources come with a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) that clients can access by simply sending a request to the server. This means that when a client calls a RESTful API, the server will respond with a portrayal of the state of the queried resource. For calling servers, most of the common REST implementations utilize standard HTTP methods like GET, POST PUT, DELETE, and PATCH.

What is GraphQL?

GraphQL is a query language, an application layer server-side technology for working with the APIs. It enables clients to make HTTP requests and fetch responses for new as well as existing data. GraphQL offers a declarative method to get and update your data. You can load data from server to client and enable programmers to select the types of requests they want to make.

The set of information in GraphQL is viewed as a graph (like the name suggests). Nodes defined using GraphQL schemas are the objects, and the edges represent the connections between nodes in the graph. This way there will be perfect clarity in query connections and improvement in objects’ connectivity. In GraphQL, a single request will fetch data from several resources. Using ad-hoc queries to a single point for fetching all the required data, GraphQL eliminates the need for sending multiple requests for fetching data.

GraphQL alsol comes with the extra feature of fetching the exact type of data to be received from the server, thus making the data retrieval process very readable and efficient.

GraphQL implements Apollo for serving data transfer between the cloud server and the UI of your app. The implementation of Apollo leads to the build of such an environment  that you will be able to handle GraphQL on the client-side as well as the server-side of the application.

What are the differences between REST and GraphQL?

Even though REST and GraphQL have the same functionality of transmitting data through internet protocols such as HTTP, they have a lot of significant differences. REST API is an architectural pattern whereas GraphQL is a query language. THe key factors that differentiates one from the other includes popularity, usability, performance, and security.

To help you with the right decision between the two, let us now evaluate the differences between GraphQL and REST in the coming section.

Key Difference between REST and GraphQL

  1. REST is a software architectural style having a set of permissions for creating web services whereas GraphQL is an application layer server-side query language used for executing queries.
  2. REST is organized in ‘endpoint’ format and GraphQL is organized in ‘schema’ format. 
  3. In terms of development speed, REST is slow and GraphQL is fast.
  4. REST can have any message format for mutations whereas GraphQL follows string for message format.
  5. REST does not have machine-readable metadata cacheable, but in GraphQL a query is validated using metadata.

 

 

GraphQL REST
Application layer server-side technology for query execution with existing data. Software architectural style that defines a set of parameters for creating web services.
Client-directed architecture. Server-directed architecture.
Organized in terms of schema. Organized in terms of endpoints.
The community system is growing.  The community system is already established. 
Development speed is fast  Development speed is slow.
Has a difficult learning curve. Has a moderate learning curve.
The identity is separated after data fetching. The endpoint is the identity.
Available resources are identified by the server. The properties of the resources are determined by the REST server.
Consistency across all platforms. Difficult to be consistent across different platforms.
The message format for GraphQL mutations is in string format. REST mutations’ message format can be anything.
Strongly typed. Weakly typed.
API endpoints are single. APIs have multiple endpoints.
Metadata used for query validation. Does not have machine-readable metadata cacheable.
UX is consistent and of high quality across all operating systems. Not consistent with all operating systems.
API customization required for GraphQL partners. New applications can be easily enabled as it offers a flexible public API.
Common problems faced for API integrations are solved efficiently and flexibly. Considered as a conventional standard for API designing.
Single endpoint is used for deploying over HTTP and provides full capabilities of the exposed services.  Deployed over a set of URLs and each URL exposes only one resource.
Caching mechanism lacks automation. Automated caching.
Nil API versioning  Multiple API versions available.
JSON representation for data formats. Multiple data formats supported.
For documentation, only a single tool is used which is GraphiQL. Open API and API Blueprint for automated documentation. 
Error identification through HTTP status codes is complex. Error identification through HTTP status codes is easy.

 

Endnote:

If you ask us which is better- GraphQL or REST, we will have a subjective response to this question and also we need to have a thorough understanding of the specific project requisites. REST is an already known and ‘tried and proven’ version, but if you want to try something new and different then GraphQL will be the one to try!

Understand what your use case is, and understand the constraints of each API design style, or else you can even try a ‘mix and match’ approach if you feel that would be befitting your project needs. Whatever you choose, make sure that your API design satisfies the requirements of all those involved in the API value chain like API provider, API developer, and the end-user!

 

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DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

Best CI/CD Tools of 2021 You Must Know About!

Want to frequently deliver apps to customers through automation? As developers you have many automation options like CI/CD. For achieving automation in different stages of app development, a CI/CD tool is a must! CI/CD stamps out the extra burden of integrating new codes for the development and operations teams through continuous integration, continuous delivery and continuous deployment.

In the so-called ‘life cycle’ of apps, CI/CD is what enables automation and continuous monitoring throughput that starts from integration and testing till delivery and deployment. These practices are connected and these practices are collectively quoted as CI/CD pipeline. In an agile project management setting with either a DevOps or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) approach, the development team and the operations team has to support the CI/CD pipeline by collaborating together.

What is Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment?

While CD in CI/CD can be either  Continuous Delivery or Continuous Deployment, both refer to automating the different stages of the CI/CD pipeline. There is a fine line between the two CDs with respect to the amount to which automation is happening. 

  • Continuous Delivery: Continuous Delivery refers to the automatic bug testing of a change made to an application by the developer, and the uploading of it to a repository like GitHub. From that point, it is further taken to the live production environment by the operations team. This way the problem of lack of visibility between the development team and the operations team can be solved. With Continuous Delivery, you will have very minimal efforts to deploy new codes.  
  • Continuous Deployment: Any changes from the developers end is automatically released for the repository to the production so that it becomes usable by the customers. The usual battle of the operations team getting overloaded with manual processes which in turn leads to delayed app delivery can be addressed. It benefits the continuous delivery side of the app by automating the next stage in the pipeline.
  • Continuous Integration: In the modernistic approach of software development, the team members work simultaneously on different features. If you go for merging all branching source code together in one day, then the result can be painstaking and time-intensive. Why because when a developer is working in isolation making a particular change to an application, there can be conflicts resulting from the dependent changes made by the other developers. The problem intensifies as each developer customized their own local Integrated Development Environment (IDE) despite the team agreeing on a single cloud-based IDE. Developers can frequently merge their code changes in a shared branch (trunk) more frequently. These merged changes are automatically authenticated for smooth building of the application and running of the application at different levels of automated testing, particularly unit and test integration tests for making certain that the changes have not negatively impacted  the app- this refers to the fact that everything from classes and functions to the different modules that affects the entire application. If at all a conflict is observed between the existing codes and new codes, Continuous Integration makes it simpler to fix those bugs quickly and frequently.

 

Best CI/CD Tools You Must Know About

If your enterprise wants to accelerate the speed of your product delivery and ensure the quality of your product, then DevOps and Agile methodologies. DevOps has a continual and automated delivery cycle that makes fast and quality-centric product delivery possible.

An excellent CI/CD tool automates your team’s workflow and offers a solid CI/CD pipeline that helps in ramping up your software product. You will find a variety of CI/CD tools in the market and to pick out the right tool that matches your objectives is a tough decision. 

We are making this decision process easier for you by presenting the best CI/CD tools you must know about:

 

  • Jenkins

 

Jenkins is Java-based suitable for Windows, MacOS and Unix operating systems with an open source automation server wherein the central build and continuous integration happens. Jenkins has hundreds of plugins that support building, deployment, and automation for software development projects.

Characteristics:

  • Simple installation
  • Easy upgrading on various Operating Systems
  • User-friendly interface
  • Extensible with plugin resource
  • Easily configurable environment in the UI
  • Master-slave architecture supporting distributed builds
  • Build expressions-based schedules
  • In pre-build steps, shells and Windows command executions are supported
  • Notifications supported on the build status

 

  • CircleCI

 

CircleCI is one of the best options available for automating the users’ pipeline right from code building to testing and deploying, thereby enabling rapid software development. CircleCI is integrable with GitHub and BitBucket for creating bulbs when new code lines are committed. CircleCI can host continuous integration or can operate on private infrastructure with the help of firewall protection.

Characteristics

  • Integrable with GutHub and BitBucket.
  • Builds can be run using container or Virtual Machine
  • Simple debugging
  • Automated parallelization
  • Quick tests 
  • Customizable emails and notifications
  • Branch-centric deployment
  • Package unloading through automated merging and custom commands
  • Quick setup and infinite builds

 

  • TeamCity

 

Different types of .NET and Open-Stack projects can be built and deployed using a continuous integration tool like TeamCity. Itr runs in the Java environment and is installable in Windows as well as Linux servers. TeamCity supports GitLab and BitBucket server pull requests.

Characteristics:

  • Settings and configurations of parent projects can be reused in multiple ways for sub-projects.
  • Parallel builds can be done simultaneously in different environments.
  • History builds can be enabled, test history reports viewed, builds can be pinned, tagged or added to favorites.
  • Server is customizable, interactable and extendable.
  • Flexible user management.

 

  • Bamboo

 

Bamboo maintains a continuous delivery pipeline through management automation of software application releases. Building and functional testing, assigning versions, tagging releases, deploying and activating new versions on production are all covered by Bamboo.

Characteristics:

  • 100 remote build agents can be supported
  • Test batches can be run in parallel and quick feedback can be taken
  • Images can be created and pushed into registry
  • Developers and testers can deploy to their environments on demand with pre-environment permissions.
  • New branch detection in Git, Mercurial, SVN Repos and applies the main line’s CI scheme to them in an automated way.
  • Build triggering based on change detection in the repository. Scheduled-based push notifications from BitBucket regarding the status of another build.

 

  • GitLab

 

GitLab’s Git repository has a web-based core product with features like issue tracking, analytics and Wiki. GitLab can trigger builds, run tests, and deploy code with each push. Jobs can be built in a Virtual Machine, Docker Container or any server.

Characteristics:

  • Branching tools to view, create and manage codes
  • Quick iteration and business value deliverance through single distributed version control system
  • Scalable collaboration of projects and codes
  • Absolute embracing of build automation, integration and verification of source codes
  • Enabled with Container Scanning, Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and Dependency Scanning for application security and license compliance.

Conclusion:

Have you found the CI/CD tool that best fits your specifications? The CI/CD tools mentioned above are the finest tools that have all the essential capabilities to suit your project goals. However we would like to remind you that your decisions are dependent on a number of other factors like existing infrastructure, room for future potential and areas of improvements among others. If you are still not sure, take the expert advice of our experts in Webdura!

Categories
DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY

A comparison between the top project management tools- Jira Vs. Trello

Is software production the same as it was 10 years ago? Of course not! It has become more complex, with teams distributed all across the globe and that too with people specialized in specific segments of the software production process. How can your customer base expand and new users captured for your software? For gaining this edge, the UI/UX of your software is your strong point.

Agile has been a buzzword over the past years and so is Project Management Tool (PMT). In Agile, Project Management has been the accomplice, the methodology, which is used for collaborating, managing work-in-progress and ensuring product deliverance on time.

Agile project management software offers improved visibility, task delegation, and workflow automation of software product development lifecycle and this aspect has been a ‘wow’ factor for even the marketing and creative teams and not just the software developers and service teams.

Jira and Trello are two giant names that you might have come across during your software development journey. But which project management software is the right one for your project? Here are our recommendations and an unbiased assessment of the two best project management tools for your product development.

A glimpse of Jira and Trello

Surprisingly, Jira and Trello are owned by the same company i.e. Atlassian. Both Jira and Trello have gained immense popularity over the last few years, and even have a common subset of audiences.

Trello was added by Atlassian in 2017 and right from that point they had the virtue of associating within large technology companies alongside existing connections. This is an added advantage for Trello customers because they benefit from added Native apps which were once available only to Jira customers, improved API connections and a much bigger support team. 

What are the advantages or disadvantages of Trello and Jira based on systems and pricing, team collaboration, project management, project agility features and integrations that makes it suitable for your business? Here are some data that we would like to share:

Comparison of Jira and Trello

  • Cloud Hosting

Certain organizations prefer cloud hosting and certain organizations like to keep their data within their network, whilst the fact that cloud-based project management tools have certain pros to it. If you wish to self-host or go for cloud hosting, Jira will be the ideal choice. For Trello, there is no option like self-hosting and the potential customers will have to compromise there. Therefore the bottom line of this is that Jira is the optimal solution for those who want to track the issues while self-hosting and not Trello.

  • Pricing

There is no clear winner when it comes to pricing aspects of these two project management tools. Until September 2019, the key differentiators of Jira and Trello was their pricing plan. But it was then that Jira software introduced their free tier and before that companies had to pay 10$ for 10 members for the cloud-based version. You will have to pay 10$ per 10 members only once, if you choose self-hosting Jira software.

In Trello’s free plan you can create any number of Kanban, tasks and collaborate with any of your team members. When it comes to integrations, the more capabilities you want on your Trello software, the more will be the price to be paid. The companies will have to upgrade their plans to ‘Business Class’ or whichever versions meet their requirements. 

Given below is the payment plan for Jira and Trello respectively:

Pricing Table

  • Task Management and Team Collaboration

Project management has two supporting pillars- team management and team collaboration. Both Trello and Jira help you achieve what you need to achieve in its own unique ways.

Trello has all the ingredients like task creation, task delegation, setting time limits, notifications, moving cards with respect to the stages of completion in a Kanban, monitoring who is working on what and applying filters for quick search and everything needed for task management and team collaboration.

Jira software strictly adheres to agility when it comes to Task Management and allows you to customize workflows with the help of workflow builder and assign rules on how a card can be moved from one point or status to another. If you wish to show certain specific work items to selected audiences, there is a provision for that too in Jira’s advanced setting. If not done rightly, this can create confusions and miscommunication among team members that we know is the least you want!

  • Agility

Agility is the quintessential factor of Jira software. It lets your team follow agile methodologies and the projects in Jira software supports both Scrum and Kanban. This means that you can use it either as a scrum tool with a scrum board or simply as a Kanban software.

Trello can be simple but it doesn’t fully comply with Agile project management. Using the Kanban software tool, you will be able to push the work quickly, but Trello fails to have dedicated support for Scrum teams. Hence using Trello for Scrum can be a little difficult.  

  • Reporting

Reporting developments, performance and a multitude of other metrics is important for making key decisions. Jira helps you to achieve that with the help of techniques like burn up and burn down charts, cumulative charts among others and helps you in overseeing exactly where the project is headed. 

Trello can help you only with procuring some basic information about your project and no out-of-the-box reporting techniques are available with Trello.

  • Integrations

At some point of time you will need something out of your PM tool, like a code repository or slack required for your project through integrations. When you compare the power of Jira and Trello in terms of third party apps that it can connect with, then the former has around thousands of tools that can be integrated with than the latter. Both Jira and Trello have free access to public APIs for you to hit the endpoints and customize workflow.

Endnote: Is there a middle ground between Jira and Trello?

Trello is easy to use, but if you want to streamline your product development process then Jira will be the right choice. The biggest drawback of Trello is its inability to generate reports and insufficient dedicated support to run sprints. This will create a ruckus for project managers trying to keep the progress on track. 

Undoubtedly Jira has an upper hand especially when your concern is about complex project management workflows. But the tool is NOT an ‘easy-to-use’ kind and can at times steep the learning curve of employees familiarizing with the product, that in turn causes not being in-sync issues. Here is your final checklist to see which project management tool can be ideal for your business: