What Are Automated Tests?

At the end of the day, automated tests are just code that tests other code.

Instead of someone opening the app, clicking through everything manually, and checking if it broke, you write a script that does it for you.

The test runs, compares the expected result with the actual one, and tells you if something went wrong.

Why this matters in real-life development

Having automated tests is like having a safety net. They help you catch bugs before users do, give fast feedback every time someone changes the code, and make the team more confident when deploying.

Plus, they’re a key part of any decent CI/CD pipeline.

Manual testing vs. Automated testing

It’s not one versus the other.
Both have their place.
But knowing when each one makes sense helps you choose the right tool for the job.

Main differences:

• Repeatability: Automation runs the same way every time. Manual testing depends on who’s doing it.
• Speed: Automated scripts are way faster.
• Human error: Manual testing always risks someone forgetting a step. Automation removes that.
• Scalability: Automated tests run on their own—even overnight. Manual ones don’t.

Pros (and cons) of each

Automated testing:

✅ Fast
✅ Consistent
✅ Great for regression and large test suites
✅ Essential for CI/CD

❌ Takes time and effort to set up and maintain
❌ Not ideal for everything (like usability or exploratory testing)

Manual testing:

✅ Better for exploring the system, testing UX, catching weird edge cases
✅ Cheap to start
✅ Flexible for fast-changing features

❌ Slow
❌ Boring for repetitive stuff
❌ Hard to scale

When should you automate?

• Tests you run all the time (regression)
• Scenarios with lots of data (data-driven tests)
• Stable features
• Cross-browser or cross-device testing
• Performance, load, or stress testing
• API testing

Manual still makes sense for:

• New, fast-changing features
• Usability tests
• Exploratory testing

Real benefits

Speed:
Automation turns testing cycles from days to hours—or minutes.
Faster feedback = bugs found earlier.

Reliability:
Tests always run the same way. No skipped steps. No guesswork.

Long-term cost:
Yes, there’s upfront time and cost.
But long-term? Totally worth it.
Fewer production bugs, less manual testing time, less stress.

How it works (in practice)

Writing the tests:
You create a test case with steps and expected results.
Then you turn that into a script (Python, Java, JS, C#, Ruby—whatever fits).

Using frameworks:
Selenium, Cypress, Appium, JUnit, TestNG, PyTest, REST Assured…
There’s something for every stack.

Running the tests:

• Locally on your machine
• On test environments
• Integrated with CI/CD (most common and recommended)

Checking the results:
The tool shows you what passed, what failed, and why.
Expect logs, screenshots, maybe even video replays to help with debugging.

Types of automated tests (not all tests are the same)

I’ve listed some common types of tests below, but you can dive deeper into software testing types here.

• Unit tests:
  Smallest pieces of the app. Quick, focused, lots of them.
• Integration tests:
  Do modules and services talk to each other properly?
• End-to-end (E2E):
  Simulate real user flows. Full stack. Slower and more fragile, but gives high confidence.
• API tests:
  Test endpoints directly. No UI involved. Fast and stable.
• Performance, security, accessibility, visual regression:
  Yup, there are tools for all of these too.

Common headaches (because nothing’s magic)

• Initial time and effort:
  There’s a learning curve.
  You’ll need to set up tools, infra, and write the first tests.
• Maintenance:
  Tests are code.
  If your app changes, tests need to change too.
  Otherwise, they’ll start breaking for no reason (flaky tests).
• Choosing the wrong tools:
  There’s a lot out there. Picking the wrong one = pain later.
• Fragile tests:
  Be careful not to write scripts that break with every minor UI tweak.

Best practices (so you don’t regret it later)

• Start small:
  Pick the highest-impact, most frequent tests first.
• Focus on stable areas:
  Avoid automating stuff that changes every other day.
• Integrate with CI/CD:
  Run tests automatically on every push.
• Make tests independent:
  One test failing shouldn’t break the whole suite.
• Keep it clean:
  Refactor tests, delete low-value ones, and keep the suite maintainable.

Final thoughts

Automating tests isn’t a luxury anymore.
It’s baseline for any team that takes software quality seriously.

Will it take work at first? Yep.
But the speed, confidence, and fewer production bugs make it 100% worth it.