An Update on the Future of Katalon

I see no technical reason for it not to be there - but if the code split is unfavorable, then it may not be.

I have a few similar questions (how to “mix” between KS and KSE but they can wait a while).

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That might be true, but Katalon Studio the base product is still free.

I think we have to understand, the way Katalon is growing (just look at the growth in terms of plugins, integration options and place that alongside over 100 new signups per week), something had to change. I knew a long time ago, something like this was bound to happen. Either that, or the company would collapse under the weight of success - hey, it happens!

I think Katalon management team have proffered a reasonable middle-ground. Any of us could argue over this or that detail (I did, trust me), but really, I think the choices they made are reasonable.

The number one thing I take from this event? They listen.

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Yes, your use case is still supported. For containers or ephemeral virtual machine, licenses will be counted based on the number of concurrent execution sessions. Please contact business@katalon.com if you need more information.

Hi
I would like to ask April 2020. After 6.X can continue to test work?
Run TestCaes TestSuites? Add Modify String Keyword? Recording Spy Web?
Or April 2020. After only upgrading 7.X Pays?:joy:

no idea. but you can do a simple test.
start a local webserver serving a certain page, disconnect your machine from internet and play with katalon on it.
if it is working, chances are that, once activated, katalon is no longer checking online the licence … so it may still be usable after the deadline.
but good chances are also the activation will expire at a certain time.
however, moving it to a new machine (or on the same if you re-install the OS) won’t work anymore , since it has to be re-activated.

Anyway, you will have the new free version available.
If you don’t need to run the tests from CLI, will be good enough.
If you need CLI run too, you only have to pay the runtime engine, but keep using the free version to develop the testcases.

Hi @Don_Welsh and @aukse.zirgule,

Thank you for raising a good question. We do offer a discount to all who have reached out to us regarding KSE and RE licenses at the moment. There might be a promotion campaign with a special discount in the future but nothing has been confirmed yet.

If you need to acquire KSE and RE licenses, please reach out to our sales team at business@katalon.com. We certainly will have a special discount for you guys.

Thanks again for using Katalon

Best,
Liam

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does that mean I wont be able to use jenkins with the free version anymore doe to the command tab no longer available?

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Guys do i need to pay to have my docker container with Katalon run? Something with CMD command don’t work and needs a license, so does that mean i need to buy the runtime?

Vijay…

Many of the changes in Katalon products are difficult for anyone to get their head around, but the licensing/pricing model is very easy to understand.

Katalon products have moved to a subscription based license. Right now, they are priced as they are listed. When each license expires, you need to resubscribe. You will be charged at the then current price (which may or may not be the price you paid previously).

EDIT: I’ve taken out all the sarcastic stuff and removed the generic “your” and replaced it with a clear “anyone”. Better?

Thanks.

Asking for a $69 monthly fee for an initial release product (that feels like it is still in beta) is a pretty big ask.
Even at the yearly rate of $759/user/year (a saving of 1 month) vs TestCafe Studio at $249/user/year, this gives a lot of test managers pause to determine the product to invest time and money into.
With a team of 5 testers that’s a difference of KS $3,795/year vs TCS $1,245/year.
On top of KS Enterprise licenses, I would need to get a Katalon Runtime Engine license to launch on CI environment at a cost of $49/month.
TestCafe is built on a Node infrastructure and command-line and CI integration is essentially bundled free.
I was actually thinking before the announcement of the price that if it was $29/user/month for Enterprise it would be a bargain, but now I have to convince management (and myself) if this road is worth taking.

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Thank you for your feedback. I just want to clarify that you can use KS (not KSE) with RE too.

not until april 2020
for all who are using Docker use tags to download 6.X version which does not need license file yet.
e.g.:
katalonstudio/katalon:6.3.3
of course, for development i suggest to use same version as for run…

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so basically with Katalon you have 0$/year with standard Studio + RunTime 540,-/year for any number of test suites executed in serial.
with 5 testers splitted in 2 teams on 2 projects 1 RT will be probably enough if you are not running tests that needs to run more that 4 hours (nightly builds)

i strongly suggest to do feature comparison (it will help to have direct links in feature comparison table) and decide based on that.
i did initial comparison between KS and KSE and in our case, for now we will use free version. there are features that are good sell points (also for us) but we don’t need them now (TO refactoring, TA sharing, Console log customization, SSL certificate and Private Plugin)

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I had the same discussion with my testmanager. I really love the tooling as functional testers (with still some support of technical testers) can even create automation scripts quite easily. Also the integration between api, mobile and ui is spot on and I understand that it is a huge investment which needs to be payed back,

My point is that I disagree with the transparency which is announced .Still on every website review it it is sold as a free product as it not is anymore. (by sales and on website I was convinced that the tooling would be free for while in NL when I was introduced to Katalon)

I have to convince my testmanager to buy the licences (which is not a big deal I think) but if necessary I will convert everything back to freeware tooling, as I am luckily technical enough to do. For me the biggest issue is the runtime engine which I think is price wise very costly, knowing we are entering the serverless world of testing (cloud run docker, lambda), which will likely reduce the FAAS cost drastically.

For me I am also more reluctant to promote because the run time licence cost as I am really an open source techie :slight_smile:

But that said: I still love Katalon!

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Yes bbonev we should have a run time engine paid version one.
We cannot run KS and Jenkins together as free anymore as console mode execution is not free anymore.

This is the sad :frowning:
I suggessted katalon to my company as a free tool and yes I loved it,spent a year writing katalon script.
Now all of sudden charging for console mode execution.
I just dont know what I should tell my company , High potential that I loose my job for giving improper suggestion to use katalon.
Katalon team, sincere request.Please keep things which were free as is and charge for your new functions.

I see, well that be expensive for enterprise studio and runtime two licenses this is stupid over 1k per year, I maybe time to go back with cucumber again.

@bbonev you can use KS free (if the online activation is not an issue for you) and pay only the runtime.
if you have proxy setups and so on (aka need of offline activation) … yeah, i am affraid you have to buy KSE too or migrate to another solution

i am also a bit unhapy with the changes, next week i have to demo katalon to my company … and the paid runtime can be a blocker to quickly addopt it since all funds for this quarter are frozen … but i hope my managers can see in the future and analyse the benefits of having one (almost) complete tool,with a friendly learning curve, rather than put efforts in creating own framework with only free/opensourced components (i do have variants also for this)
so … will see what they say. wish me luck!

as for the 1k per year … let’s be serious. is only
some percents of the monthly salary of a skilled devop/aqa engineer (this depends on the company standards, ofcourse)

i spend more money on buying cigs (bad habit) in one year. so if i quit smoking i can afford a full kse+kre licence for my personal use. just to have numbers …

I was informed that KS includes Katalon Studio Enterprise and Runtime Engine 30-day trial.
My account is activated and previously everything worked fine, but now CircleCI returns me this:

Activating…
Start activating offline…
Finding valid offline licenses in folder: /root/.katalon/license
The number of valid offline licenses: 0
Offline activation failed.
Start activating online…
Invalid license.
Runtime Engine is not supported for standard license.
Online activation for console mode failed.
Activation failed. Please make sure you are using a valid license.
All launchers terminated

How could I use the trial version runtime feature?

Katalon is a very nice tool and I congrats the team. But we selected it a year ago (over Selenium) because it was nice and promised to be free (your CEO said it would always be free and was your contribution back to the community). Otherwise, we may have just gone with Selenium.

Not necessarily a complaint (hey, it’s your software!), but it really puts me in a pinch with my own customers (who may not want to pay that licensing, so I may end up with a year of wasted effort that will have to be moved). Ouch.

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