OpenText Silk Test Reviews and Pricing

it_user369150

Technical Test Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 13, 2016

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The web browser testing is very useful for applications with lots of Java script.

Pros and Cons

"Not many performance Testing tool provides end to end response times for scripts running on the page, this tool is capable of providing end to end real time browser response times."

"The browser based testing needs to be improved."

What is most valuable?

The web browser testing is very useful for applications with lots of Java script and application using Google on-line tool kit. Also, user based licence arrangements are best to suit organisation with budgeting constraints.

How has it helped my organization?

Not many performance Testing tool provides end to end response times for scripts running on the page, this tool is capable of providing end to end real time browser response times.

What needs improvement?

The browser based testing needs to be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've used it for three months.

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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

10/10

Technical Support:

10/10

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We switched as not many tools allow browser based testing as Borland SilkTest does.

How was the initial setup?

It was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

It was done by a vendor.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

You pay per day for a licence based on the number of users.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Saraswathi B

Test Automation Project Lead at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

May 23, 2016

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It has multi-language support, including 4L and Java.

Pros and Cons

"It drastically reduced our manual regression efforts that is difficult to achieve in Agile model."

"Need to improve online documentation, community and forums to share issues encountered and solutions."

What is most valuable?

1. Object oriented approach

2. Keyword word driven framework

3. Supports both record & playback and descriptive programming

4. Supports multi-language support 4L (similar to C++) & java

5. Last but not least the separation of test design from test implementation

How has it helped my organization?

It drastically reduced our manual regression efforts that is difficult to achieve in Agile model

What needs improvement?

Need to improve online documentation, community & forums to share issues encountered & solutions.

For how long have I used the solution?

Almost a year.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We've had no issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've had no issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We've had no issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

In my experience, the customer service is good.

Technical Support:

In my experience, the technical support is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not previously use a different solution.

How was the initial setup?

It was straightforward and we did not encounter any issues.

What about the implementation team?

We have in-house implementation.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Not very sure about popular proprietary tools like QTP, but should be comparatively less.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No, as our customer has this licence we are supposed to use this tool.

What other advice do I have?

It supports most of the good features available in QTP, but is not so popular due to less online support.

This solution supports Windows, web-based apps along with Mobile (android & iOS).

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Buyer's Guide

OpenText Silk Test

June 2026

Free Report: OpenText Silk Test Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about OpenText Silk Test. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.

it_user371454

Sr. Program/Product Manager at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 18, 2016

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We were able to write Object classes for the UI objects.

Pros and Cons

"Using this DLL functionality we were able to automate our product."

"At that time, we never had good technical support in Bangalore."

Valuable Features

Support of the browser, with any client was good. Also, support of DLL features was awesome as we could recognize in-house built UI Objects. Having Basic State and Application State for test case level was good.

Improvements to My Organization

We had in-house UI objects build for our product and using the DLL functionality we were able to write Object class for those objects (Similar to creating Xpath for objects in Selenium). No other tool was available at that time which supported this. Using this DLL functionality we were able to automate our product.

Use of Solution

No issues encountered.

Deployment Issues

No issues encountered.

Stability Issues

No issues encountered.

Customer Service and Technical Support

I was using this tool in Bangalore and not in US. At that time, we never had good technical support in Bangalore. Not sure what is the current situation.

Implementation Team

It was an in-house one. We had bought license for this product.

Other Advice

Most of the time, when people are evaluating tool, they see how easy it is to record and play back the test case. However, if you really want to know the capability of the tool, we should look at what kind of levers it provides programmatically to help suite our requirements.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user345987

QA Automation Lead at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

Dec 20, 2015

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It's good for regression and sanity testing. It needs to improve on Firefox and Chrome as their versions change.

Pros and Cons

"SilkTest is best for desktop applications and good for web applications also with the Open agent."

"SilkTest has to improve on Firefox and Chrome as their versions change."

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features for us are the Classic agent for desktop and the Open agent for IE. It also support the languages Java and C.

How has it helped my organization?

It's easy to use and good for regression and sanity testing.

What needs improvement?

SilkTest has to improve on Firefox and Chrome as their versions change.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using it for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Less issues with the Classic agent, but with the Open one we have faced some issue.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Less issues with the Classic agent, but with the Open one we have faced some issue.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

It's good.

Technical Support:

It's good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did have a solution previously.

How was the initial setup?

It was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We did it in-house.

What other advice do I have?

SilkTest is best for desktop applications and good for web applications also with the Open agent.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user294423

Mobile QA Developer at a tech vendor

Oct 1, 2015

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It's helped us to automate routine regression tests, though it doesn't support the latest versions of some UI libraries .

Pros and Cons

"With the help of SilkTest we've automated a bunch of routine regression tests, thus we saved our testing team weeks of testing time."

"I've seen a lot of potential users upset with the SilkTest due to broken installation."

What is most valuable?

1) SilkTest provides great object model and general approach for windows declarations. A lot of things which existed in SilkTest for ages were implemented in some other solutions relatively lately

2) Quite powerful internal language (4Test) however with Open Agent there is an ability to write tests using Java or C#.

3) It used to be relatively fast in comparison to TestComplete or QTP. Partially it's due to relatively light-weight IDE

4) Good system of test cases and application states

5) It is initially designed to support distributed test runs

How has it helped my organization?

With the help of SilkTest we've automated a bunch of routine regression tests. Thus we saved our testing team weeks of testing time.

What needs improvement?

1) Many times I've seen that SilkTest doesn't support the latest versions of some UI libraries (that happened many times for DevExpress and Infragistics). Being on top of cutting edge technologies is vital

2) Despite the support of real programming languages like Java and C# this feature wasn't really convenient to use. Old-style 4Test solution still seemed to be more convenient and efficient. It would be nice to have windows definitions recorder which could create windlasses and window objects on Java and C# in similar fashion as it was initially done for 4Test

3) Installer errors could take place. Since for potential users it's first impression on the system such errors shouldn't take place at all

4) Some technologies were supported in a form of extensions (e.g. ActiveX, Web). It would be good if we wouldn't have a need to make additional setup to start working with at least mainstream technologies

For how long have I used the solution?

Intensive use during 2004-2007. Some temporary consulting on 2012

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

I've seen a lot of potential users upset with the SilkTest due to broken installation. By default when we install SilkTest it is configured to use Open Agent. But after installation some service wasn't started so that Open Agent was inaccessible. Despite fix is pretty quick a lot of users were upset with it. That problem was available on 2012. Hope at the moment it is fixed

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Sometimes it was hard to handle long runs which take longer than 12 hours. Agent or IDE could hang from time to time. But in overall, SilkTest was pretty stable even on machines which were working weeks without any restart

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Never had a chance to communicate

Technical Support:

Never had a chance to communicate

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before SilkTest our company used WinRunner. Switch to SilkTest was justified by:

1) License cost

2) More up-to-date technology

3) Numerous technical advantages listed in the most valuable features section

How was the initial setup?

Setup in general is pretty easy. There were 2 major issues we could encounter:

1) In addition to base technologies we had to enable extensions to support ActiveX, Web and some other UI types. And extensions could be picked up after some retries which wasn't really convenient

2) Not sure about now but SilkTest was hard to work on machines which had Mercury (later acquired by HP) products installed (WinRunner, QTP or LoadRunner). Usually problem appeared with extensions. They couldn't be enabled

What about the implementation team?

In-house

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user3396Team Lead at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

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Nov 19, 2015

Cool review

it_user186282

Team Lead Automation with 51-200 employees

Jan 27, 2015

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Although the GUI interface needs work for non-developers, its GUI mapping is valuable

Pros and Cons

"It speeds up testing efforts."

"GUI interface could be simpler for non-developers."

What is most valuable?

GUI Mapping
4Test

How has it helped my organization?

It speeds up testing efforts.

What needs improvement?

GUI interface could be simpler for non-developers.

For how long have I used the solution?

10 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues with deployment.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

8 out of 10.

Technical Support:

7 out of 10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

MI's Winrunner.

How was the initial setup?

It was a straightforward set-up.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Initial cost was very high, took two years to save up for it. Wish Borland's Silk was less expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, several free and several paid. Amongst others, we looked at Selenium, Ranorex, WTP, Rational, MI, Auto-it, and Jmoeter.

What other advice do I have?

Don't just research the automation tool, research what your needs are.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user69066

QA Expert at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Nov 11, 2013

QTP vs SilkTest WorkBench

The last few months, I've been working with the Silk Tools (particularly the WorkBench .NET variant IDE) and I must say that I like what I've been using. The libraries provided by Silk are quite good for your typical automation and when you run into custom applications, the .NET IDE (which is based on the MS Visual Studio IDE) allows you to code purely in VB.NET. There are some limitations using WorkBench but they can completely removed when you switch completely to MS Visual Studio and import the Silk libraries. From an automation perspective, I'd say this is actually more powerful than QTP but for the majority of client engagements, QTP out of the box, can handle the engagement a lot more easily because it is catered to almost every situation. However, when it comes to the bang for your buck, I'd actually go with Silk/Borland! The only real problem comes down to the fact that you have very little online presence for the Silk products compared to HP's QTP. So finding solutions to problems requires more self help and reading of more technical articles than compared with finding solutions for QTP, as it has already been done and the code is most likely available online somewhere.

So take what you want from this and if you have any questions, feel free to comment and I'll get back to you when I look at this next.

Just in keep in mind, I'm talking in the broadest sense and what I've said may not apply to your current situation.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.