Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (19th), API Testing Tools (15th)
Sauce Labs
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
17th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Test Automation Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Rational Test Workbench is 1.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sauce Labs is 2.7%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Test Automation Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Sauce Labs2.7%
IBM Rational Test Workbench1.2%
Other96.1%
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

"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."
"The custom capabilities that can be provided to Sauce Labs VMs during automated testing sessions are a valuable option for experimental or niche testing."
"Testing across multiple devices and environments is now possible to do quickly and effectively."
"Sauce Labs helps us identify the root causes of bugs. The solution offers a lot of flexibility by providing the latest iOS and Android emulator versions, and even the Appium updates when it comes out in the market."
"The solution they provide is very robust. We can quickly connect to their environment with the hub URL. They have a URL that has the entire grid of desktops, web browsers, and mobile devices. They also provide real devices, so you just provide the URL and test your application."
"Sauce Lab analytics helped us to get detailed knowledge on test cases execution and logs."
"The Failure Analysis feature is really important for us, one of the most important aspects. What is the root cause? Is it because we have a defect or is it that we have a test case that we need to fix or modify? The Failure Analysis is one of the main functionalities that I am exploring all the time in Sauce Labs... The Failure Analysis helps us to discover which test cases we need to work on."
"Running tests in parallel."
"It helped to integrate our performance testing and UAT, which helped to deliver a bug free software for our customers."
 

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. 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."
"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."
"Integration with Github, as well as several other similar tools, could be improved."
"One of the challenging areas for us is the reporting and the matrix. It should be based on roles, but right now it is only available for the admin role. The admin role can really do a lot of stuff, but our infrastructure team, which holds the admin role, is not ready to hand it over to us on the testing team. If Sauce Labs had permissions associated with roles, where this role could do this activity and that role could do that activity, it would be easier for us."
"They could improve the platform's customer support services."
"Sauce Labs' dashboard could be improved by adding more filters and allowing more customization options. There was one instance where the dashboard on the Sauce Labs UI didn't meet our requirements, so we had to use the Sauce Labs API to create some apps and dashboards on our own. The API endpoints could be a little more robust and customizable."
"On a rare occasion, I will come into a ticket where a customer will have reached out to me after reaching out to Sauce Labs, saying, "Sauce Labs doesn't understand what I am going through. They are not being very helpful." So, I try to do clean up there. Outside of those extremely rare occasions, I have only had one or two of those support issues."
"We have faced challenges with the availability of mobile devices. There was once or twice where there were no mobile devices available."
"We have found that during automated testing this can be very slow. This causes inconsistencies with the tests. It's very difficult to rely on a service when you can't be sure if a test will pass or fail the next time it runs. This means building in a lot of sync time into the tests which in turn slows them down. If this speed could be improved then the service would be much better."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It doesn't really concern me. Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is a little bit on the higher side, although it is really good."
"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."
"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"."
"​Now that we have an enterprise license, we no longer have to worry about minutes each month!​"
"Trial the product and see if it suits your needs."
"Their pricing is incredibly competitive."
"Go ahead please. Try it at a smaller scale."
"With respect to pricing, they did a bundled discount because we went with Sauce Labs for both mobile and browser. They were very competitive on pricing and provided a bundle discount for us as a larger customer."
"It could be less like pay-per-use with a lower rate."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Test Automation Tools solutions are best for your needs.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Non Profit
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Sauce Labs?
It has significantly enhanced our testing accuracy by approximately 50%.
What needs improvement with Sauce Labs?
Sauce Labs can include new technologies like generative AI, which can reduce the human effort in writing test cases. For example, in my current project, we reduced the time it took to complete user...
What is your primary use case for Sauce Labs?
I work as an automation engineer using Selenium WebDriver with Java, and API automation using Rest Assured with Java. I have also worked with Docker integration on AWS. Additionally, I have experie...
 

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: January 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.