BrowserStack Automate vs Web Platform Tests
BrowserStack Automate
browserstack.comWeb Platform Tests
web-platform-tests.orgSide by side
| Figure | BrowserStack Automate | Web Platform Tests |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $59/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Cross-Browser Testing Software | 8.5 (#7) | 7.5 (#22) |
| Spec score · Browser Testing Software | 8.6 (#11) | 7.5 (#32) |
| Integrations | The integrations page lists Cypress, Jenkins, Selenium, Appium, Playwright, Puppeteer, and other automation frameworks and tools. | GitHub is used for issue tracking and test submissions, and pull requests receive automatic labels and reviewer notifications based on directory metadata. |
| Purpose | Automate provides a fully managed automation grid for testing across physical desktop, iOS, and Android devices. | Web Platform Tests is a cross-browser test suite for the Web platform, intended to help browser projects check compatibility across implementations. |
| Security | BrowserStack says it is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and that its compliance covers its data centers and platform. | The project documentation says SSL certificates for HTTPS-enabled domains are obtained through Let’s Encrypt. |
Plans
BrowserStack Automate
- Chrome$59 a month
- Desktop & Mobile$175 a month
- Desktop & Mobile$175 a month
- Desktop & Mobile Pro$225 a month
In their own words
BrowserStack Automate
BrowserStack Automate provides a managed automation grid for testing websites and apps across physical desktop, iOS and Android devices. It supports more than 3,500 real desktop and mobile browser combinations and lists Selenium, Playwright, Puppeteer, Cypress and JavaScript framework support. Tests can run in parallel across hundreds or thousands of browsers, although the listed plans show one parallel test by default. BrowserStack Local securely connects internal staging environments to BrowserStack Cloud. Reports can include video, screenshots, framework logs, CI console logs, network logs and AI-driven failure analysis. Other listed capabilities include microphone audio injection, network simulation, Apple Pay workflows, localization settings, physical SIM testing and camera image injection. Integrations include Jenkins, Jira, Slack, Appium and multiple CI/CD tools. Deployment options are cloud and self-hosted. There is a free trial but no free plan; the Chrome plan costs $59 a month, billed annually. BrowserStack says its platform is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and its privacy policy complies with GDPR.
Web Platform Tests
Web Platform Tests is an open-source suite for checking web platform compatibility across browser implementations. Anyone can run tests through the public wpt.live deployment in an internet-enabled browser, or clone the suite for local use on Linux, macOS, or Windows. The suite includes JavaScript API, rendering, crash, WebDriver, and manual tests. Its command-line `wpt` tool runs tests in a selected browser and can produce machine-readable JSON reports and screenshots. It can also save and load expected results for continuous integration and regression tracking. Regularly collected results from a range of browsers are archived at wpt.fyi. Local setup requires Python 3.9 or later and configuration of test domains in the system hosts file. Running tests in multiple browser processes may make results less deterministic and add noise compared with the default single-process mode. The project is free and open source, and documents Windows, macOS, and Linux setup.