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IBM Rational Test Workbench vs Sauce Labs 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 Test Automation Tools
28th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (18th), API Testing Tools (16th)
Sauce Labs
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
20th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Test Automation Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Rational Test Workbench is 1.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sauce Labs is 3.2%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Test Automation Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sauce Labs3.2%
IBM Rational Test Workbench1.6%
Other95.2%
Test Automation 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.
MR
Lead Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Provides multiple test environments and saves time, but should have something for inspecting mobile apps screens
With the desktop browser, we can inspect any screen with the web developer option, but they should provide something for mobiles so that we can quickly inspect elements on the device. To write the Selenium scripts, we require web locators. We have to capture them from the local and execute the script on Sauce Labs. If Sauce Labs can provide a solution where we can inspect any of the mobile devices online, it will be very helpful for us. I also faced an issue where during the execution time, the iCloud password used to expire within a certain period, which used to create pop-ups on the screen making our tests fail. That was one thing that we faced many times. If that can be improved, it will be very helpful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Using service virtualization, we are able to accelerate the testing and development activity."
"This solution provides for API testing, functional UI testing, performance testing, and service virtualization."
"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."
"All IBM testing tools are really well integrated."
"Reporting is pretty good. Its interface is also good. I'm overall pretty happy with the functionality and use of IBM Rational Test Workbench."
"Sauce Labs has one of the best infrastructures available for browser automation, and it keeps getting better."
"Maintaining many environments for test is a bear. These guys make it so easy with their CI integration that you can have tests going in after a few hours."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to easily test multiple browsers and versions, as well as off-loading our local environments using the SauceCloud."
"I've been able to help numerous companies get up and running with Selenium quickly thanks to Sauce Labs."
"I have found the live test section with Sauce Labs to be extremely valuable. When you can't quite figure out why a test is failing, you can go to the live test results section within their tool and launch your test (specifying a given OS/browser, or device) manually and step through the test to see the issue more clearly, usually opening up the developer's tool console and watching the network calls and console (within Chrome) to usually find the underlying issue."
"Sauce Labs, which blends seamlessly into Agile and ATDD processes, has made the process much smoother from a QA perspective."
"Yes, it allowed us to scale mobile testing across the globe."
"Sauce Labs provides us with more combinations to test, so we can keep adding platforms and devices to our network. That's been a very seamless experience. Let's say there's an iOS or a private device we need. Sauce Labs has helped get all those set up when needed."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"I may not know what should be improved on the platform, but I think it could offer a greater variety of testing solutions. I know there might be competing solutions that cover more things I'm unaware of, and it could expand a bit more. We've done a lot of automated testing scenarios, and that's all the rage these days, so I think Sauce Labs could look at potential ways to improve and cover other scenarios."
"The session duration is too short; it's only about 3 hours long."
"It's a little bit slow sometimes."
"Lacks the ability to start multiple tests simultaneously."
"I would like for there to be more detail in regards to the quality of our code i.e. how many failures occurred, how many passed based on industry standard metrics, etc."
"I think it should be a longer trial period with more parallel tests available."
"The real concern is the load time of applications or real devices when we start our tests. It takes some time to load the application or web browser. Sometimes, it is frustrating too. Since they are real devices, we understand it takes some time to load. However, if it were to improve, then that would be a great asset to the solution. So, we would like better responsive times when opening applications and running tests."
"Some of the new features could be improved, for example, the playback on simulators."
 

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."
"Cost-wise, it's decent. If you have to get the base version out of it, it's the best solution to go with. As compared to other cloud service providers, the pricing of Sauce Labs is decent."
"Go ahead please. Try it at a smaller scale."
"It is an expensive tool."
"We pay for a specific number of VMs."
"When you reach the Enterprise licensing tier, base level being with 10 concurrent test sessions, pricing is essentially per-unit-of-concurrency thereafter with a relatively linear increase and not much benefit for "bulk"."
"Compared with other services, Sauce Labs is a bit expensive."
"​Now that we have an enterprise license, we no longer have to worry about minutes each month!​"
"The pricing is reasonable due to the amount of diversity that they provide. However, I feel they might be more flexible to bargain based on their relationship with our organization."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Construction Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise73
 

Also Known As

Rational Test Workbench, IBM Rational Performance Tester, IBM Functional Tester, IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Financial Insurance Management Corp.
Salesforce.com, Mozilla, Zendesk, Puppet Labs, Twitter, Bank of America, Eventbrite, Bleacher Report, Okta, Intuit, Travelocity, Sharecare, CapitalOne.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational Test Workbench vs. Sauce Labs and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.