Test automation was designed to help QA teams cut down on repetitive manual work and test faster.
While it served its purpose, as apps grew more complex, there came issues like heavy dependence on skilled testers, lengthy test framework setup times, and constant effort of maintaining fragile scripts.
That’s when low-code testing started getting traction, so much so that today, the global market for low code testing platforms, which was $1.2 billion in 2024, is expected to reach $7.8 billion by 2033.
In this blog, we’ll see in detail what low-code automation is, its components, process, limitations, and best practices.
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What Is Low Code Testing?
Low-code testing is a method of testing your software or application through visual interfaces. Rather than writing your test scripts in code, you describe, record, or model what you need to test, and the testing tool automatically converts them into structured executable tests.
These testing platforms usually come with built-in test execution, parallel testing, data handling, environment configuration, and reporting capabilities, so you can seamlessly orchestrate your entire software quality assurance workflow from test creation to result analysis.
Why Use Low-Code Automation?
Traditional test automation setups generally depend largely on coding expertise, which can slow your test creation process as well as limit the members who can participate in the software testing lifecycle.
Moreover, without AI integration in testing, fragile scripts can break, unable to adapt to UI changes. This, in turn, can increase test maintenance and technical debt.
Low-code automation addresses this by enabling QA, development, and product teams to build more comprehensive tests that align with both technical specifications and user requirements while improving collaboration in agile environments.
And low code automation tools connect seamlessly with your continuous integration flows, which allows you to automate test runs, get quicker feedback, reduce maintenance through AI assistance, and keep test suites updated with very little manual effort.
How Low Code Test Automation Works
The main components that enable low code testing and help you scale test planning, creation, modification, and execution are:
A. Visual modeling: This component of low-code testing allows you to design test flows as diagrams that represent the real user interactions.
You can create tests by mapping how your app works along with its workflows, inputs, and expected results. The tool then automatically generates test scenarios and converts them into executable tests.
B. Record and playback: The record and play paradigm helps you interact with your app, and the testing tool records these interactions and then turns them into structured test steps automatically.
You have the flexibility to edit and refine these recordings to create more targeted scenarios that match actual user actions.
C. Drag and drop: With the drag and drop feature, you can pull reusable blocks (e.g., click element, enter text, or go to URL) provided by the platform into a workspace and arrange them in a sequence that actually forms the structure of your test cases.
Intelligent layers that help you enhance test execution flow
Most modern low-code automation platforms offer you AI-driven features that enable you to build a more resilient automation that can easily adapt to change.
1. Natural language processing: NLP (natural language processing) lets you define test steps in plain English, which your testing tool translates into executable actions. This way, you can reduce the dependency on technical syntax and keep your tests readable and closely aligned with technical and business requirements.
2. AI-powered self-healing: When your UI elements or locators change, self-healing mechanisms can automatically adjust your tests to these changes by identifying selectors or patterns to continue execution. This helps you minimize your manual maintenance overhead and false test failures.
3. Code extensibility: Code extensibility is important, and it enables you to inject custom scripts and test complex scenarios, integrations, and edge cases. A balance between low code automation testing and coding control helps your team meet both standard and advanced testing needs.
5 Popular Low Code Testing Tools in 2026
1. mabl: mabl is an AI-native testing platform that allows you to author your tests with the help of a plain English description, a Jira ticket, or a user story.
You don’t need to write CSS selectors or script interactions. The platform handles that for you. Whenever you update your app, mabl automatically detects the affected tests and recovers them with your approval.
2. TestGrid: TestGrid is an AI-powered low-code/codeless automation platform that helps you manage your entire testing cycle from test planning and authoring to execution and maintenance. You can design your tests in natural language and upload them via CSV or paste them in the AI portal. TestGrid then automatically translates them into structured test flows.
You can integrate the platform with GitLab, Jenkins, or Azure DevOps to trigger test runs and get rich visual test reports in real time.
3. Testim: Testim is an AI-driven testing platform that lets you build your tests without coding. You can record the user flow that you want to test, configure test steps in a visual editor, identify and lock in elements automatically, and reuse components across all your tests.
You can easily capture user actions like clicks, text entry, and drag and drop with the recorder and speed up your test authoring process.
4. ACCELQ: With ACCELQ, you can identify and map out E2E test scenarios without needing to write scripts manually.
Express your complex business rules in plain English and generate comprehensive automation logic. ACCELQ helps you ensure sustainable automation with AI-recommended modularity, effective test data permutations, and intelligent parameterization.
5. Leapwork: Leapwork is a continuous validation platform that is fully agentic and deterministic by design. The AI helps you plan, build, and update tests, adapt them as your interfaces shift, flag failures with context, and keep execution history, results, and audit trails available.
With Leapwork AI Studio, you can generate test plans with test case blueprints that are derived from your source code and requirements.
How to Get Started with Low-Code Test Automation
1. Focus on your core testing activities
The first step is to define your test objectives and requirements explicitly so that the testing tool knows exactly what tests to create.
You don’t need to worry about the syntax or framework setup. All you have to do is map out the user flows, features, and critical functions that you want to test, and outline the inputs and expected outputs.
2. Select your low code testing tool
Every testing tool comes with different features, onboarding requirements, learning curves, and subscription costs. You may end up with high maintenance overhead, flaky tests, poor integrations, and low ROI if you pick the wrong tool.
So, how do you choose the right low code test automation tool?
This is what you should look for when assessing the functionalities offered by the tools:
- Support for model-based test automation so you can generate tests from user flows and system behavior
- Strong test stability with self-healing mechanisms that’ll help your tests to adapt to UI or DOM changes
- Cross-browser compatibility and cross-platform compatibility to run tests across web, mobile, desktop, and API testing environments
- Seamless integrations with CI/CD, test management, reporting, analytics, and collaboration tools
- Reusable components and centralized updates to minimize manual maintenance Common gaps in existing low code automation tools
Before you finalize a testing tool, it’s also important that you know about its limitations.
For instance, many tools depend on predefined workflows heavily, which can be restricting if you have non-linear user journeys or need deep customizations. And some tools, even though they claim ‘self-healing automation,’ struggle to handle dynamic UI updates.
TestGrid helps you address these problems by enabling test creation from plain English, offering self-healing to reduce flakiness, giving you detailed logs for better debugging, and allowing you to write custom test scripts for advanced test scenarios and complex user paths.
3. Design your tests
Next, use your testing tool to design tests via visual workflows like record and play, drag and drop, or flowcharts.
You can then refine your tests with the reusable components to avoid duplication. Focus on the critical areas of your app like login/checkout features, authentication flows, and core business functions. These are some of the most important tests that you must focus on:
- Functional testing – this helps you verify if your app’s features work as defined in your functional requirements
- Regression testing – here, you check if any existing functionality was affected because of code changes or updates
- Performance testing – it allows you to check how your app behaves under stress, load, and high concurrency scenarios
- Security testing – this enables you to spot vulnerabilities like data exposure or unauthorized access
- End-to-end testing – this is where you test your app’s UI, backend, integrations, and databases as a whole before release
4. Execute tests across environments
Most low-code automation tools let you execute your tests across different browsers and device environments.
You can easily configure variables (like URLs and credentials) and test data, and integrate the testing tool with your CI/CD pipeline to trigger tests automatically on every build. You can also run the tests in parallel to speed up your testing and feedback process.
5. Analyze the results thoroughly
Lastly, it’s important to review the test results and assess the execution traces, failed steps, logs, and screenshots, and evaluate if the issues are actual defects or they happened because of any gaps in your test design.
Since in low code testing, you’re not writing your tests from scratch, you should check if the platform’s visual and AI-powered test-building features are actually helping you create comprehensive tests.
Best Practices for Low-Code Software Testing
1. Limited debugging capability: One big challenge with low code testing is that if your test fails, you may not get code-level insights and full visibility into selectors, execution paths, or error states because you mostly depend on logs and screenshots. And this can make root cause analysis harder.
Best practice
The best way to overcome this issue is to select a low-code testing tool that also allows you to access the test code and gives you a clear view of all the execution steps so you can debug failures quickly.
2. Potential for vendor lock-in: Some low testing platforms may tie your test assets, including the data, integrations, and workflows, to their ecosystem. This dependency can make it tough for you to migrate tests, limit scalability, and increase switching costs.
Best practice
Go for low code test automation tools that support open standards, API access, and exportable test artifacts. And design your tests in a modular way as this will help you transition or integrate with other external systems when needed.
3. Risk of missing critical test scenarios: Since most teams prefer low-code automation because it speeds up the test creation and execution process, it may lead them to focus more on common or happy paths. This increases your risk of missing edge cases and negative scenarios.
Best practice
Complement low code tests with risk-based test design. First, note the edge case, boundary conditions, and failure scenarios, and then include them as separate test flows rather than just verifying the auto-generated user flows.
Why Choose TestGrid for Low Code Automation
TestGrid is an AI-powered software testing platform that allows you to automate tests without heavy coding, while providing a robust infrastructure across cloud and on-premise environments to execute them at scale.
It also delivers detailed reports, including logs, videos, and device-level insights, to support efficient debugging and root cause analysis.
The platform supports multiple approaches to test creation, from low-code and codeless workflows to record-and-playback, allowing QA teams, product managers, and business stakeholders to validate both simple flows and complex user scenarios.
Beyond test creation, TestGrid enables parallel execution across browsers and real devices, integrated test data management, and team collaboration through CI/CD and workflow integrations.
Its AutoHeal capability helps reduce maintenance effort by adapting to UI changes and updating element locators during execution.
Build tests your way. Use visual workflows or add custom scripts when needed. With flexible deployment and support for existing frameworks, TestGrid gives teams the control to scale testing without unnecessary complexity.
This blog is originally published at TestGrid
