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IBM Rational Test Workbench vs Perfecto comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Rational Test Workbench
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
19th
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
30th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
API Testing Tools (16th)
Perfecto
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
13th
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (16th), Mobile App Testing Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Performance Testing Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Rational Test Workbench is 2.2%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perfecto is 3.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Performance Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Perfecto3.1%
IBM Rational Test Workbench2.2%
Other94.7%
Performance Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1513668 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist, ITE at a government with 10,001+ employees
Good reporting and interface, but supports limited types of protocols and requires low-level script editing
It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there. What it does, it does great, but it only gives you limited types of protocols. It supports between 8 to 15 types of protocols, whereas other test tools give you 20 to 30 types of protocols with which you can do testing and convert to script. It records Javascript-based scripts, and you got to know a little bit of Java to basically be able to edit them, but the level of editing you got to do is very low. I like that, but the ability to edit the script is not as good as Parasoft or LoadRunner, which have C-Script.
Roland Castelino - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Lead at BMO Financial
Its reporting allows us to have a clear view regarding what tests have been executed
The most valuable would be their Live Stream analysis, where I can see the live analysis of all the executions on a single device or multiple devices as well as track them. The live analysis and reporting would be the single most valuable feature. We leverage Perfecto’s reporting and analytics a lot. From the CI Dashboard, it is mainly the status, which is the past, failure count, and time consumption, e.g., how much time did an average test or script take? Along with that, it provides the historical view compared to the previous result, e.g., am I a pass or fail? Also, the stack trace is very important. Whenever a pass occurs, we don't look beyond that. However, whenever a failure occurs, the stack trace information that it gives us is pretty critical for us when figuring out where failures lie. It gives a summary for the pass/fail count, total test count, the historical view, time consumption for each test as well as the total tests, and the stack rate of the failure. Perfecto's analytics are very important since we use them on a daily basis. We run our executions daily. After every execution, we pull information from the Perfecto reporting system and share that with our stakeholders. Having this information accurately reported is pretty important for us, so everybody is aware of the current status of the product. That way, we can evaluate the health of the product or environment against that which has been executed. Therefore, it helps make those real-time decisions and highlights the impact to the business. I found Perfecto to be pretty easy to use while executing against cross-platforms. The main reason is because the same script or test automation where we execute on multiple platforms has minimal changes that I need to do. Also, it is easy for me to set up an execution on one platform, then on another platform, either in parallel or one after the other. Parallel opportunities save me time. Once the execution has been completed across these different configurations, I can always check and compare, e.g., what are the differences and consistencies? We utilize Perfecto’s cloud-based lab to test across devices, browsers, and OSs. I use it occasionally for manual testing. Though, there are other team members who use it more frequently than I do. I use it mainly for executing my automated tests. We have the Perfecto lab, cloud devices, and machines. I can program my test to execute against any of those devices, which gives me more confidence in my product. I can compare and see how my product or application functionally behaves across these different devices and from a UI point of view, which helps me a lot. The device lab is extremely important to our testing operations. We rely on having multiple devices up and running all the time. Whenever we kick off an execution, there are multiple reasons why executions may get triggered: * CodeCommit * A scheduled job. * Might be on-demand by any stakeholder. We need the lab to be available, as we need devices up and running for executions to take place. Also, the devices help since they allow us to have parallel execution, and not just wait for a sequential device to become free and available. Therefore, volume is definitely key. It also gives us an opportunity to compare execution across platforms in that space. It is extremely important to you that the lab provides same-day access to new devices since we analyze that data every single day after execution. Perfecto provides their own framework called Quantum Framework. That is one option. The other option is, if I want to have my own framework, I can have a Java-based Maven project, take a Selenium library, AppiumLibrary, and REST Assured library, and utilize the open-source framework. It is easy for us to connect to Perfecto, no matter what framework we use, as long as it has these core libraries in it. I can design and structure it any way that I want. The execution will happen in Perfecto no matter what since they have support for these tools or libraries. It is pretty neat that way. We are not dependent on using just one particular framework to use Perfecto. While there are still some framework limitations, there is the opportunity to use multiple, different open-source frameworks, then pass the execution to Perfecto. We can use most frameworks, then design and craft it any way that we want, then just pass the execution to Perfecto.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"All IBM testing tools are really well integrated."
"IBM Rational integrates the testing software as Rational Test Workbench, which is quite convenient and efficient as it is able to automate the test scripts."
"Using service virtualization, we are able to accelerate the testing and development activity."
"Reporting is pretty good. Its interface is also good. I'm overall pretty happy with the functionality and use of IBM Rational Test Workbench."
"This solution provides for API testing, functional UI testing, performance testing, and service virtualization."
"In terms of Perfecto's ability to perform cross-platform testing, I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"Perfecto is part of our testing life; when we test, we do it in Perfecto, and without it, our team would not be able to perform testing on mobile devices."
"Perfecto has affected our software quality in a good way; it has allowed us to catch our defects earlier, thus improving the quality of our applications."
"Being able to run automated tests and see the success and failure rate of those runs every day has saved us a lot of time and helped us identify issues much sooner, which has improved the quality of our software."
"Customer Service: It's been 100%. Technical Support: It's been 100%."
"I also like the reporting functions. We are constantly downloading these reports and sharing them with our final customers. They help us understand what kind of bugs are happening through the applications. The recording feature is handy because it lets us see a video of the process we run through the pipeline and discover the point at which the automation is breaking."
"Mobile testing is the most valuable feature as it has reduced dependency on physical devices. We are located offshore and we don't have the physical devices, and shipping physical devices after every new release would be a difficult task. But with Perfecto, it is easy."
"In terms of cross-platform testing, they offer all of it, every device available in the market. It covers real scenarios that mimic production so that we don't miss out on any devices that our clients might be using to run the applications we develop. It's been great and very helpful."
 

Cons

"It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there."
"Rational Performance Tester supports cloud technology in the version 8.7, playing test scripts back on the cloud is not stable."
"There are a number of things that they can do to simplify the tools, but the most important thing that they need to do is simplify the installation."
"It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there. What it does, it does great, but it only gives you limited types of protocols. It supports between 8 to 15 types of protocols, whereas other test tools give you 20 to 30 types of protocols with which you can do testing and convert to script. It records Javascript-based scripts, and you got to know a little bit of Java to basically be able to edit them, but the level of editing you got to do is very low. I like that, but the ability to edit the script is not as good as Parasoft or LoadRunner, which have C-Script."
"Implementing custom functions is bit tedious job, as ECMA script does not support some of the standard java-script functions, Also the Script editor window is not user friendly."
"I'm hoping they can support on-premises instances."
"The flakiness, or the accuracy, of the test execution can be improved. Also, the responsiveness of their cloud lab could be improved as well."
"We don't use Perforce's BlazeMeter with Perfecto. From my perspective, it's not really relevant."
"When using devices on the cloud, it lags quite a bit at times."
"When using devices on the cloud, it lags quite a bit at times. I know that these are real devices that are being projected on our laptop screens and monitors, but if the speed could be improved, that would be good."
"There was a discussion about having the capability to export the test results to a certain tool that we use in our project. If that were added it would be great not having to manually take screenshots, put them in a document, and share them on the different test management tools."
"I would like to see the inclusion of machine learning features. If we can have that, it will be a better tool."
"It is slow compared to physical device testing. The interactive speed could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a little bit on the higher side, although it is really good."
"It doesn't really concern me. Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"It's definitely on the higher end of prices for this type of service."
"Perfecto's price is excellent compared to other products with similar features. It was the lowest of the three we evaluated. We also established a partnership with Perfecto, so they provide discounts when we sell Perfecto projects and licenses to our customers."
"Pricing is an area where Perfecto can do a little better. When we obtain additional licenses, we enter into negotiations with them."
"Perfecto has definitely saved us on the costs and efforts of having to maintain our own virtual test environment. We lost about 20 devices in the past to maintenance and audit. That was a massive loss for us, as a company, because we were giving devices to someone, but don't know whether we would get it back or not. Having those virtual labs, we don't need to worry about these kinds of things. We are easily saving $5,000 to $10,000 a month on device costing."
"Pricing-wise, it is fine. It is not as expensive as what we used to have in the past from HP, IBM, and others. It is decently priced."
"This is an expensive solution compared to others, by 30% to 40%."
"I am not sure about its pricing, but from our perspective, licensing has been easy. Anytime I have new users or requests for users that want to get added, it's a very simple process. I just give the architectural owner of the product the name and email address, and they're able to easily add a new user. We don't have any issues in regards to getting licenses, but I don't have any insights into pricing."
"Although Perfecto is a good product for us to use, it is a bit expensive. It takes management a bit of work to find the appropriate funding for us to keep Perfecto. I imagine there could be some way to make it more accessible."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Non Profit
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise23
 

Also Known As

Rational Test Workbench, IBM Rational Performance Tester, IBM Functional Tester, IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server
Perfecto Mobile, Perfecto Web
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Financial Insurance Management Corp.
Virgin Media, Paychex, Rabobank, R+V, Discover
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational Test Workbench vs. Perfecto and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.