Weāre excited to announce the release of Katalon Studio 11.0.0
This is a major upgrade focused on making test creation faster, test execution more reliable, and debugging a whole lot easier, especially for teams scaling automation.
A more modern, stable foundation
Weāve upgraded core technologies to keep Katalon future-ready and more secure:
Java 21 (Eclipse Temurin LTS)
Selenium 4.39
Appium Java Client 10.0.0
Cucumber 7, with built-in migration support
This helps reduce compatibility issues, improves performance, and lowers long-term maintenance effort.
Create tests faster with AI
Several new AI-powered capabilities help you spend less time scripting and more time testing:
AI Recording Agent (Beta) turns plain-English scenarios into executable web tests.
Smart Mobile Recorder ā Interactive Mode (Beta) records mobile tests directly from live device interaction.
AI API Test Generation creates, runs, and lets you save API tests directly to your test case repository from an OpenAPI spec.
These features reduce manual work and make test creation more accessible to no-code and low-code users.
Fewer broken tests, less maintenance
AI Self-Healing (Beta) automatically recovers from broken locators in both Web and Mobile tests, helping prevent failures caused by UI changes.
New mobile keywords and recorder improvements make interactions more reliable.
This means fewer flaky tests and less time spent fixing locators.
Debug failures faster
Katalon Studio Tracer (Beta) captures DOM snapshots, network activity, logs, and browser state so you can quickly pinpoint what went wrong.
A redesigned Log Viewer shows clearer, more accurate execution details.
Faster root-cause analysis and easier troubleshooting for flaky or complex failures.
Better collaboration & integrations
StudioAssist Agent Profiles let teams share custom AI instructions for consistent test generation.
Improved qTest integration restores reliable upload of test execution results, ensuring accurate reporting and traceability.
Many fixes across execution, StudioAssist, WebUI, Mobile, and Recorder tools improve overall stability.
As of v9.3.2 at March 2024, Katalon introduced the distinct distributions of āEnterpriseā and āFreeā. IMHO, this distinction caused some confusions amongst people including Katalon themselves.
As of v10.3.0, they changed the distribution format; they started providing a single distributable for os.
A user who pays can use its full features. A user who doesnāt pay still can use its limited features, excluding payable features. One may regard this as the āFreeā one.
Now, as of 28 Jan 2026, v11.0.0, they changed the name of the distributable files.
(looks similar to the old versions prior to v9.3.2)
I understand that they intend now to erase the word āEnterpriseā throughout the Katalon publications. However, still there are a lot of āEnterpriseā appearing here and there on their site and the productās UI. Apparently they havenāt done enough proofreading and corrections yet. We, users, should be generous about the naming inconsistency.
Auto upgrade doesnāt work on major versionās since there are breaking changes. We also consolidated it down to one binary (no free vs enterprise binary).
That way when peoples trials run out - they can just keep using the version they have instead of having to download a separate binary.
@nghi.phan While itās great to see Katalon Studio V11 come out, I need to call out how poorly the upgrade experience to v11 has been handled.
Letās say I am Katalon Studio 10 and go to Help ā Check for Updates, we get the pop up info box that it is āup to date,ā even though version 11 has already been released. There is no indication anywhere in Katalon Studio that a newer major version exists or that it must be downloaded manually.
From a userās perspective, this is actively misleading. Most users reasonably assume that āCheck for Updatesā will tell them when a new version is available. If major versions are excluded from in-app updates, that needs to be communicated clearly inside the product.
On top of that:
No email notification was sent to licensed Enterprise users
No in-product banner or upgrade notice exists
No prominent documentation explains that v11 requires a separate download and install
Relying on a community forum post as the primary announcement channel for a major paid release is not acceptable. Many enterprise users do not monitor the forum unless they encounter issues.
At minimum, Katalon should:
Update the in-app updater to notify the very least that v11 exists
Clearly state that v11 requires a manual install
Communicate major releases directly to licensed customers
We are deeply disappointed with how Katalon has went about this. I hope this will be looked into and addressed in the future promptly.
Thanks for checking on the emails Philip, we can confirm that we did not receive any email communication notifying us of Katalon V11 release but to be frank even if emails were sent, relying on email alone is not sufficient for communicating a major release to active users of the product.
The bigger issue here is the in-product experience.
If āCheck for Updatesā only works for minor and patch versions, that is fine technically ā but from a user perspective, the current behaviour is misleading. When the product says āYou are up to date,ā as I stated earlier most users will reasonably assume they are on the latest available version of Katalon Studio, not just the latest within their current major version.
There should be clear in-app messaging such as for example:
āYou are on the latest version of the 10.x series. Version 11 is available and must be downloaded separately.ā (Preferably with a link directing to the downloads page)
Right now there is:
No in-app notification that v11 exists
No upgrade banner or release notice
No indication that major versions require manual installation
Also, email delivery cannot be guaranteed (spam filtering, mailing list sync issues, users changing roles and whole host of other potential issues) which is why from my experience most enterprise softwareās usually surface a major release notifications directly inside the product.
As paying customers, we should not have to solely rely on:
Community forum posts or
Hoping an email arrives ( It is more of a good to have)
to discover that a major version has been released.
This is ultimately a product communication and UX issue from our point of view, not just a technical updater limitation. I would strongly urge Katalon to add in-product visibility for major releases going forward.
Thanks for pointing that out Philip - Apologies, we acknowledge that technically there was banner and in-app notification.
However, in our real-world workflow we almost never see the Start Page. First off we almost never close Katalon unless there is a forced system restart. Secondly, We have auto-restore sessions enabled, so Katalon reopens directly into the last project/test case we were working on. For teams like us who use Katalon on a day to day basis, itās very easy to miss Start Page messaging entirely.
Also, the Start Page banner links to a webinar registration page rather than the actual Katalon download page, which adds more friction when users are trying to upgrade. The webinar page redirect is fine but the landing page should at least have a link to the downloads page and instructions that it should be updated manually.
From our teams perspective, we would appreciate it if major releases could ideally be surfaced somewhere unavoidable (e.g one-time popup, project view banner, or updater message indicating a new major version exists, even if it requires manual download).
This helps reduce compatibility issues, improves performance, and lowers long-term maintenance effort.
Create tests faster with AI
Weād love to hear from you! @depapp @dineshh @Monty_Bagati @kazurayam
