AMA Mobile Testing Answer: Any suggestions, or experiences with test automating mobile/mobileweb using real devices on both of the platforms Android-Chrome, iOS-Safari ?
28 Mar 2026
In this moment:
Venkata Nutalapati
Any suggestions, or experiences with test automating mobile/mobileweb using real devices on both of the platforms Android-Chrome, iOS-Safari ?
Hi Venkata, I've only used BrowserStack(BS), but there are quite a few real device companies out there. It would be a good idea to do some demos and try them. You'll be better able to ask questions, find things you didn't realize were non-negotiables, and determine which one would suit the best. I will say that not all the information on real devices and their cost are on the different sites. I recall there being extra cost for something related to real devices that we were surprised to hear. I'm sorry I don't recall what it was.
A lot of this was 4 years ago, so it may have changed in that time (I hope). I actually had a lot of trouble getting BS integrated with Cypress and (a very old version) TeamCity(TC). We were never able to get the results back from BS so the build step in TC would accurately report failures. We weren't able to solve it, so it was abandoned for our specific product.
Other teams did still use it successfully, so I had access even without automation. I used the Live feature often to test bugs on different browsers. With the addition of "Local", I was able to access internal environments, too. That was a huge plus. I was able to use it for web and mobile web. Although my product didn't support mobile web, we still had a team that worked on responsiveness and used BS for the different device capabilities.
We used it more often for our native app. One project I had was to reorganize the automation code so it could be used in TC for everyone to access. Making sure BS could still be accessed was included and, honestly, the easiest part of the entire process.
I never got a good opportunity to use the newer features like Accessibility or Percy. It would be very convenient to have not just functional, but accessibility and visual testing all in one place.
The price of these platforms is usually quite high. One job I had, the price completely put it out of our ability to use any real device platform. We had to rely on manual testing.
Hopefully this was helpful!
Hi Venkata, I've only used BrowserStack(BS), but there are quite a few real device companies out there. It would be a good idea to do some demos and try them. You'll be better able to ask questions, find things you didn't realize were non-negotiables, and determine which one would suit the best. I will say that not all the information on real devices and their cost are on the different sites. I recall there being extra cost for something related to real devices that we were surprised to hear. I'm sorry I don't recall what it was.
A lot of this was 4 years ago, so it may have changed in that time (I hope). I actually had a lot of trouble getting BS integrated with Cypress and (a very old version) TeamCity(TC). We were never able to get the results back from BS so the build step in TC would accurately report failures. We weren't able to solve it, so it was abandoned for our specific product.
Other teams did still use it successfully, so I had access even without automation. I used the Live feature often to test bugs on different browsers. With the addition of "Local", I was able to access internal environments, too. That was a huge plus. I was able to use it for web and mobile web. Although my product didn't support mobile web, we still had a team that worked on responsiveness and used BS for the different device capabilities.
We used it more often for our native app. One project I had was to reorganize the automation code so it could be used in TC for everyone to access. Making sure BS could still be accessed was included and, honestly, the easiest part of the entire process.
I never got a good opportunity to use the newer features like Accessibility or Percy. It would be very convenient to have not just functional, but accessibility and visual testing all in one place.
The price of these platforms is usually quite high. One job I had, the price completely put it out of our ability to use any real device platform. We had to rely on manual testing.
Hopefully this was helpful!
Brandy Brotherton
Principal QA Engineer
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Enthusiastic QA nerd that never wants to stop learning about all things testing, QA, and life.
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