Oftentimes, testers may resort to emulators and simulators because they're a less expensive option compared to building a device lab for all the platforms required. Testing on actual mobile devices comes at a higher cost compared to mobile emulators. At the end of the day, real devices are necessary because testing on them will show a larger range of issues that your users are experiencing. For this reason, testing on real mobile devices is more accurate, concise and user-specific, and they become essential for performance, reliability, operability, sanity, and regression testing.Īdditionally testing on real mobile devices will allow your organization to perform faster testing, since you can run multiple devices in parallel such as with a Selenium grid. Mobile emulators also are known to give false negative/and positive testing results, which can be problematic in an advanced testing process and can negatively impact developers' progress, ROI and bottom line goals. For example, emulators cannot simulate high traffic volume in the way that a real device will experience, which would possibly affect the results of performance or functional testing. This is because emulators can't account for every single environmental factor, feature or user action performed on a real device. While simulators and emulators will come close to imitation, it's impossible to perform exactly the same as a real device.
The advantage of real devices is that you're testing the same way that your users are operating their devices as your tests run against the same, actual devices.
We've found that the use of mobile emulators and simulators is most appropriate in the earlier stages of testing or test prototyping, where you may not require 100 percent accuracy but rather want a fast test that gives you a general idea of how a web application is performing.Īs you continue to refine your testing process, you will likely find that real devices give you more precise observation and allow you to observe more particular aspects of a web application.
The difference, respectively, is that one emulates (replicates or reproduces) real mobile device software, hardware, and the OS in order to test and debug applications within another software/hardware platform, while the other simulates (imitates or mimics) the internal behavior of a device, but does not emulate hardware or work on the OS. Emulators and simulators are often used and referenced interchangeably since they perform similar functions. Mobile emulators are virtual devices that are used to mimic the functionality of real devices and imitate a user's actions to recreate operational behaviors.
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