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Ranorex Studio vs SmartBear TestComplete comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 22, 2025

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

Ranorex Studio
Ranking in Functional Testing Tools
16th
Ranking in Regression Testing Tools
7th
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Mobile App Testing Tools (7th)
SmartBear TestComplete
Ranking in Functional Testing Tools
7th
Ranking in Regression Testing Tools
4th
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Test Automation Tools category, the mindshare of Ranorex Studio is 4.7%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear TestComplete is 6.0%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Test Automation Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

Aug 24, 2016
 

Featured Reviews

Aws V - PeerSpot reviewer
Good data security, allowing local installations to prevent data from going to the internet
There were a lot of issues we faced. One notable improvement would be better API integration within the tool itself, as we still rely on external tools like Postman. Additionally, expanding language support beyond C#, Java, and JavaScript to include Python would be beneficial. An AI feature that automatically detects automation object properties and suggests actions would be a great addition. So, in future releases, AI solutions for automated property identification would be helpful.
Prakhar Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for integration automation, user-based automation, and web automation
The solution's most valuable features are the drag-and-drop feature, keyword-driven approach, and reusability of the scripts. The solution has introduced a new feature that helps us identify objects we cannot normally identify. It gives you a fair idea of objects, resolving the object recognition issue. The solution can be used to perform different tests on different machines.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The scalability is very good. It's probably one of the better tools I've seen on the market."
"Easy integration with CI Tools like Jenkins, TFS, and TeamCity."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution is intuitive and pretty self-sustaining. You don't need a lot of help with it in terms of setup or assistance."
"Support is very quick. You can write to them and on the same day, they will respond. This is one of the best features."
"Data security was prime for us. Being able to download and run tests on our local machines was a big plus. The flexibility Ranorex offers in terms of customization is outstanding."
"This is a powerful, reliable and versatile all-around application testing suite."
"The solution is fast and includes built-in libraries that record and playback."
"This company offers end-to-end capabilities for test suite creation and execution. One feature that I particularly appreciate is the tagging system. Tags are highly valuable, as they allow you to assign tags to your test cases. When there's an impact in a specific area, you can search for and run all test cases associated with that tag. I find this functionality very useful."
"Test items, project variables helps in managing automation suite and scheduling execution."
"Recording and playback of tests were easier with SmartBear TestComplete...It is a scalable solution."
"The database checkpoints detect problems which are difficult for a human resource to find."
"The solution helps improve the stability of our product. It also decreases the work of our manual quality assurance engineers."
"The initial setup is pretty easy and it's quick to deploy."
"Runs in different remote machines. We have multiple versions of the software being tested."
"The reporting is ready to use and doesn't require any setup."
 

Cons

"I'd like to know their testing strategies and to know what they can automate and what they can't. It can become pretty frustrating if you're trying to automate something that changes on a monthly or weekly basis."
"The object detection functionality needs to be improved."
"If there are many queries on the web page, Ranorex will not render the page correctly. I had about 1,000 queries on the page, and the solution was not able to handle it."
"I would like to be able to customize the data grids. They are currently written in Visual Basic and we are unable to get down to the cell level without hard-code."
"When Ranorex is upgraded, the compatibility with other projects, in version control, in-house or on-premise, fails on occasion. However, overall, the stability is good."
"Binding to other sources is very good but the object recognition in .NET desktop applications often doesn't work."
"The solution's technical support team could be responsive."
"We are mainly working for manufacturing OEMs but the integration is not available. It would be a benefit if they built one integration tool for all the Teamcenter home servers and software as the main PLM data source. It is a simple process at this time, the integration could be made easier."
"Product is not stable enough and it crashes often."
"Increased performance with less memory and CPU usage."
"I didn't use it very heavily. One issue that I found was that there wasn't a quick way or a button to move Visual Basic scripts to TestComplete. We have a lot of such scripts in our organization, and it would be very useful to have some option to easily move these scripts. It is currently possible to convert these scripts to TestComplete, but it is not easy. I have to write some code, but everything is not available immediately."
"We were testing handheld barcode scanners running WindowsCE with many menus of warehouse functions, and our biggest problem was the timing between input and responses."
"The solution’s customer support should be improved."
"There could be API interfaces with this tool."
"Stability issues occurred only when connecting to the SourceSafe. Sometimes, after getting the latest version, the tool hangs and it should be reopened in order to recover."
"If that engine could better identify more XPaths automatically and make the process more flexible, that would be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is a more expensive solution compared to some of the other competitors."
"There are several types of licenses and you need to choose depending on your needs and level of usage."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Our company has one license per user with each costing two lakh rupees."
"We paid €3,000 (approximately $3,300 USD) for this solution. When you add the runtime licenses it will be €3,500 (approximately $3,900 USD)."
"The licensing fees depend on the number of users."
"It comes with a high cost."
"Overall, for us, the cost of the TestComplete platform and the three extra modules is around $8,000."
"TestComplete now have come up with three modules (Web, Desktop & Mobile), so based on the type of product for automation, it is adequate to purchase the required module."
"The pricing is a little above average — it could be lower."
"SmartBear TestComplete is an expensive tool."
"The solution's licensing cost has increased because it has moved to some new SLM-based licenses."
"The solution is around $1500. Some are perpetual licenses, and some get a yearly report card."
"My advice so far, is that while it’s not quite as powerful and easy to use as UFT, its price tag more than makes up for it."
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Answers from the Community

Aug 24, 2016
Aug 24, 2016
Thanks all, it's encouraging to see so much support and responses
2 out of 16 answers
it_user83412 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 23, 2016
All of these solutions are based on scripts and face the associated limitations. Test data management, parameterization, dynamic TBOMs, BPCA, SolMan integration and script maintenance all pose potential issues. I'd recommend looking at Tricentis Tosca or Worksoft, both of which provide scriptless automation for SAP GUI. Tosca also supports Fiori and NWBC natively as well as over 30 different UI and API technologies. [FULL DISCLOSURE: I work for Tricentis, so obviously biased, but we serve many SAP clients]
it_user457878 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 23, 2016
UFT will support or Tricentis TOSCA .
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Ranorex Studio?
Data security was prime for us. Being able to download and run tests on our local machines was a big plus. The flexibility Ranorex offers in terms of customization is outstanding.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Ranorex Studio?
I'd rate it around five out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, not too cheap but not overly pricey.
What needs improvement with Ranorex Studio?
There were a lot of issues we faced. One notable improvement would be better API integration within the tool itself, as we still rely on external tools like Postman. Additionally, expanding languag...
What do you like most about SmartBear TestComplete?
TestComplete has strong reporting capabilities. The reports they generate are really good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SmartBear TestComplete?
I am not involved in pricing or licensing; our management team handles these aspects.
What needs improvement with SmartBear TestComplete?
While using SmartBear TestComplete, we are fine with the current capabilities, however, it would be beneficial to improve some performance aspects, especially the image comparison feature. Occasion...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Siemens, TomTom, Adidas, Canon, Lufthansa, Roche, Cisco, Philipps, Dell, Motorola, Toshiba, Citrix, Ericsson, sage, Continental, IBM, Credit Suisse, Vodafone
Cisco, J.P. Morgan, Boeing, McAfee, EMC, Intuit, and Thomson Reuters.
Find out what your peers are saying about Ranorex Studio vs. SmartBear TestComplete and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.