We've been users of Mogotest since they first launched their beta. Amazing time saver (especially if you dev on a Mac). I run automated tests across three sites as well as on demand after major pushes. It's especially helpful for our IE 6/7/8 testing. I used to keep VMWare open to test IE stuff and it killed my poor MB and was still a pita to have multiple IE versions happy in my test XP image. Haven't opened it in months ... don't miss it at all.
I don't ask to go elsewhere, I ask because coincidentally I decided this morning was the day for me to find a better solution to all the crap I've been tolerating for so long in my cross-browser compatibility work. Mogo was the absolute quickest to impress me and I'm curious if I've misevaluated the lot of them, or if I'm so trained to adore anything referred from HN. I need some perspective.
nirvdrum, care to compare lists of "Web Testing" tools?
Sure. I'm going to simplify things just because of space constraints, but I'll highlight what I think are the biggest differences.
- browsershots.org: Free option (go to the back of the line), paid option (priority), but ultimately screenshots only.
- Adobe Browserlab: Pricing not defined? It will be pay, but I don't think they've announced pricing. Single page only results. Just does screenshot comparisons.
- Litmus App: I'm not sure if they're completely out of the space. They've been focusing on email render testing. Single page only results, but pretty slick UI.
- browsera: Does some of the cross-browser issue detection (we'll be adding this soon, but it's not there yet), but feels clunky to use. Limited browser selection, but they said they're working on that. Doesn't do the general site issue detection we do.
Sorry if that was an oversimplification. I'm not trying to misrepresent what the others are doing. Some do some things better than us now, but we're moving pretty quickly on our product, which we think is better in other ways. Primarily, we're amongst the fastest and easiest to set up & use.
Hmm. Great idea, truly. But $45 /mnth? Don't get me wrong. I'm not a miser. I buy software, ebooks, audiobooks and online subscriptions without batting an eyelash. But $45 mnth seems to break an invisible threshold for me. For $45 a month, the service better rock my world.
Nirvdrum, have you heard anyone else express that concern?
We spent a considerable amount of time on the price point. As you can imagine, at nearly every interval there's a contingent of people that won't pay for one reason or another. So, your concern about the $45/month isn't unique, but the price is the one we found balanced best.
The other half to your lead-in is whether the service really rocks your world. For a lot of people what we provide today is very compelling. Of course, we plan on enhancing things so it rocks other people, too.
If you'd like to discuss more, please email me at kevin at mogotest.com. I'd love to hear more about what you think.
Fortunately, I am not affiliated with your company, so I can afford to be a bit more blunt:
One can spend a lot of time on testing. Time is very valuable. If one's time is worth $45 an hour and you spend more than one lousy extra hour per month to save the cost of this service it is probably a mistake.
Too many services price themselves by telling amateurs what they want to hear instead of charging for the value provided to professionals.
Sure, Mogotest fulfills the needs of the hardcore web designer set, but I see the trend moving towards CMS platforms like Wordpress and pre-tested, standard compliant templates, rather than designing from scratch.
That means professionals from related web industries, enthusiasts and "amateurs" may require a service like Mogotest, but not with the frequency of professional website designers, or at the current, one-size-fits-all subscription price. Just sayin.
A little background on me. Over the past dozen years I've developed hundreds of websites, and I still wouldn't consider myself a "professional website designer". Website design isn't where my expertise or passion lie.
So yeah, nirvdrum, maybe I'm not your market. That's cool.
If you click on the URL in the test results, you'll see a grid of your screenshots in each browser. If you hover each thumbnail, you can see a full resolution version or a full canvas version (shows all scrollable content). There's a set of image comparison tools there, too.
The thumbnails are great, but it probably would be better to make getting there more clear. Also, I would put all of the IE screenshots on one row. Great service though, glad to see another option for testing across browsers.
Duly noted. It's a little easier to get there when you you're testing a full site, but we should improve the single URL experience. And thanks for the feedback on the grid.
Sorry about that. We're doing our best to keep up with demand. Seems something funky happened for you. I just ran that site through and it returned in about 27 seconds. Would you mind trying again?
