Until a few months ago I was using Katalon studio (KSE) but due to changes in our small company, now I had to switch to Katalon Studio (Free).
I have seen that there are comparisons on your website of the versions, but I would like to know the opinion of users: details to take into account, if the change is very “terrible”, if there are differences in performance… I know this depends a lot on the product and the strategy followed, but for knowing opinions and more with these latest versions.
The big difference is in the upcoming support and release schedule is changing.
Free and Enterprise will have quarterly feature updates. However, Enterprise will have monthly patches to resolve problems quicker and potentially iterate on beta features faster.
The code base is the same, so performance should be the same. Some features will be gated, like custom-keywords and plugins on the store.
I have only been required to use katalon for a few weeks, but there has been one point that has hindered me a lot: the keywords. With this version change, I can no longer use keywords that I had built (for example, to verify that a text was inside a PDF) and the truth is that I don’t really know how to resolve this point. How are other users doing it?
I understand that if new things are implemented (AI, making the tool more powerful or with new features for example) you pay for it in higher versions, but I think that the keywords have always been a basic functionality.
I also understand the position of not coding for a free version and that positioning, I myself am not a technical profile, I only defend myself with small codes, but I don’t think that any profile has to be limited to one version or another, as it is a good tool for both perspectives to coexist. Now I am more lost because I don’t know what to do with the tests that fail because they have basic keywords that I created myself.
I’m a bit ‘afraid’ that the next step is… I don’t know, remove or limit the object repository, which is where I store all of them, or limit actions like ‘drag and drop’, ‘Right click’…
These are just some doubts, has anyone else had this happen? what possible solution or advice does the katalon team propose? @Elly_Tran
If you have a limited number of Keywords, then you might be able to have them at the top of your Test Case, below the “import” statements and the start of your code. Another poor replacement option for Keywords is to use a “callTestCase” in place of a Keyword.
I use KS just for fun. I do not have any serious business to use KS for. I can not afford of any Enterprise license. However, I would require the capability to implement custom classes (so called “Keyword”), which was moved to be an Enterprise feature as of v9.1.0. So I stay with v9.0.0 Free version. I would not upgrade to the newer versions.
We almost forgot to mention another possibility for you to get access to Katalon Studio Enterprise (and continue to use Custom Keywords) simply through your engagement on our forum.
For almost every of your interaction on our forum i.e. log in every day, creating a thread or replying to others. You would gain Kudos, which you can use to exchange for gifts from our team (that also include 3-6 months of KSE/KRE/TestCloud/TestOps usage).
