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Product
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Solutions
Bankingaqua ALM helps banks increase testing productivity by over 50%
InsuranceConsistent testing with aqua ensures robust insurance software that increases retention
ManufacturingUsing aqua helps an IoT manufacturer save 3% of revenue by reducing production defects
Governmentaqua paves the way for digital transformation with a portfolio of 7 government organisations
Tech companiesaqua helps reach a defect detection ratio of 98% with thorough and efficient testing
Medicalaqua proudly serves 10+ enterprise medical companies to level up their QA -
Resources
BlogTips & tricks on how to manage testing process effectively and speed up releases
aqua wikiDetailed information on aqua capabilities, functionality and features
Product updatesDescription of our newest features and their value to QA teams
Success storiesCompanies that want to keep up with digital change trust in aqua
Product FAQFast answers to the most important product questions
Data centersExplore our infrastructure & global locations
Why you need an real test management system?
Excel spreadsheets were the cornerstone in the early days of proper software QA. Companies used them to create test cases, store them, and even painstakingly fill out test reports. Most modern businesses have moved on to dedicated test management systems by now. If you are still using Excel, take 5 minutes to learn why it’s worth upgrading.
Key differences between aqua and Excel
aqua offers free AI-enhanced testing
aqua is a QA-tailored solution
aqua saves 20+ hrs/week per tester
How we compare
AI
AI is a rapidly developing tech, so we will look at cutting-edge tech rather than the baseline. Here’s what you should expect from an AI-powered test management solution:
- Analyse your workspace to get QA context
- Create test cases, defects, and even requirements from a plain text description
- Complete test case drafts
- Prioritise tests
- Remove duplicate tests and defects
Artificial intelligence has actually become intelligent, and QA vendors are starting to catch up. aqua, however, is not behind: the AI Copilot has been leveraging GPT even before ChatGPT made it mainstream. aqua reads your test suite, understands the context behind it, and utilises it so you can create entire test cases from scratch, update requirement coverage, and prioritise tests.
Verdict: aqua wins (Excel has no AI-powered testing)
Test management
Test management is the main reason we are looking at these two tools. You should consider various aspects of handling test cases as well as traceability-minded features. These include:
- Create, execute, share, and manage test cases in the workspace
- Group tests into test scenarios, segment them into folders, assign labels
- Quickly navigate the test suite, apply filters, use individual and shared views
- See the entire execution history for a test case
- Store a full log of changes for compliance
- Visualise requirements coverage and dependencies between requirements, test cases, and defects
If you expand the industry standards block above this paragraph, you will find a hefty list of test management features. With how mature the market has been, you expect to find a lot of these features in something as basic as a Free Forever plan of a very small-scale tool. Excel, on the other hand, provides you nothing from this list. You can write tests and even put down test results, but that’s hardly different from using a stack of papers and a pen. Excel has no native QA features, and there are no third-party plugins to remedy that.
- Filters
- Views
- Filters
- Views
Integrations
Most tools rely on automation via common third-party tools that QA specialists have been using for over a decade. The experience is much better when your test management solution has native integrations for industry-leading tools. REST API support is a must if you do not want to be at the vendor’s mercy for integrations.
- First-party framework automation or third-party integrations with test automation tools
- Native third-party integrations: Selenium, Jenkins, JMeter, SoapUI, Ranorex
- Jira integration and/or Jira plugin
- REST API support for integrating any tool
aqua preaches the third-party approach to automation, providing native integrations with industry-leading tools. You can also exchange data with your Jira workspace or complete synchronise Jira and aqua projects. The only QA integration for Excel that you will see will come from the vendor of a test management solution so you can import existing test data from spreadsheets.
- REST API
- REST API
Pricing flexibility
Pricing can vary a lot; you will find small differences that make no sense but also high fees that are completely justified. Here are some factors to consider:
- Extra functionality beyond test management
- Transparent pricing without locking essential features behind the most expensive plans
- Custom enterprise plan
- Price-to-volume scaling that suits your team size
- No exorbitant setup and/or maintenance fee
- Free licences for guests / non-tech specialists / manual testers
Pricing is hard to compare, since Excel is not bound to criteria that vendors of test management systems use. Moreover, Excel is sold as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription. It may cost less than aqua, but some aqua licences will come free and working with an actual QA tool saves thousands of dollars.
- Free setup
- Free setup
Deployment Models
On-Premise deployment is a must in many industries, yet vendors won’t explicitly say if they don’t offer it. Depending on your security policies and scale, deploying in a non-vendor Cloud is a beneficial option too.
- Vendor Cloud
- External Cloud: AWS, Azure, etc.
- On-Premise
Despite not being a multi-trillion dollar operation, aqua matches all deployment modes that you can get from Microsoft. You can use aqua’s secure cloud in Germany, pick any other Cloud provider that you like, or deploy on-premise.
- On-Premise
- On-Premise
Dashboards
QA dashboards serve two vital purposes. They help the QA team track their progress, but they also make other teams aware of potential bottlenecks. At a minimum, you should be able to include any data and share dashboards with the team.
- Use all data of the workspace
- Create private and shared dashboards
- Choose between various types of graphs
- Set up KPI/values alerts that arrive as email/app notifications
Excel is the tool to beat when it comes to data visualisation and manipulation. That, however, does not help much when you need to aggregate data across a lot of spreadsheets. There will be lots of redundant manual effort, inevitable errors, and unnecessary friction. You are not getting KPI alerts that notify you when something is going wrong either.
- All data including custom fields
- External dashboard sharing
- Pie, bar, stacked bar, table charts
- All data including custom fields
- External dashboard sharing
- Pie, bar, stacked bar, table charts
Reporting
Reporting is important for both internal and external stakeholders. The goal here is to get what you need with as little or as much effort as possible. When a tool offers both a template library and rich customisation, that is a good start.
- Access vendor-provided template library
- Create custom layouts and save them
- Use and transform any data
- Apply text & image formatting
- Add external data and imagery
- Employ scripts and parametrisation to auto-update reports
Reporting is similar to dashboards. You are getting the same visualisation and data organisation techniques, but aqua is tailored to handling QA data better.
- Template library
- Custom reports
- Any data
- External data & imagery
- Text & image formatting
- Custom layout
- Diagrams
- Drag-and-drop
- Pivot tables
- Scripts
- Parametrisation
- Template library
- Custom reports
- Any data
- External data & imagery
- Text & image formatting
- Custom layout
- Diagrams
- Drag-and-drop
- Pivot tables
- Scripts
- Parametrisation
User management
Precise user management is essential when working on multiple projects and/or working with external specialists. It will also save you a lot of pain from running crowd testing in the same test management solution.
- Set default roles
- Create custom roles
- Apply per-user permissions
- Authenticate users via SSO
aqua and Excel are a close match when it comes to user management. Microsoft 365 supports restrictions on editing and accessing Excel files. You can’t, however, create a custom set of permissions for that. Granting and removing per-user permissions is not supported either.
- SSO
- Default user roles
- SSO
- Default user roles
ALM
This is not a hard requirement, but you may be interested in a test management solution that also handles the entire product lifecycle. This is a great money saver as you need licences from fewer vendors, and the synergy should save you some hours as well.
- Test case management
- Requirements management
- Defect management
- Project management
aqua is a genuine test management system, but it is more than that. You can use it to handle the entire development process, from coming up with requirements to managing timelines and fixing defects. It’s effectively a 4-in-1 solution, while Excel is a clear loser even in a comparison of aqua and Excel for testing.
What people say
Here are a few things people like and dislike about both tools.
“I was surprised to find such a comprehensive and mature tool for test management in the German market without having taken it seriously beforehand.”
Jörg Großmann
Head of Development at Bank 11
“Why on Earth wouldn't you want to use a tool that's been developed specifically with managing issues in mind rather than one that you'll have to bend and shape to track data when it's really for tracking numbers?”
John Eckersley
Senior Product Manager at Payroll
“The reporting is meaningful and provides a good basis for decisions. After the employees have used aqua, they recognize the added value very quickly.”
Thomas Haeske
Head of Organisation/IT at Berlin Hyp
“I don't like to use Excel for test cases because it grows into a pain to manage after the first 50 or so. Especially so if there are multiple people working on the same file. No easy way to link defects, no easy way for screenshots, etc. After working with an over complicated Excel project with 700+ test cases, I've seen the horror...”
Reikhard
QA community contributor
“Manual test cases are easily automated with aqua. Seamless integration with test automation tools helps here.”
Jörn-Hendrick Sörensen
Test Manager at KBA
“There is zero reason anyone should be using Excel because there's "no database." Anyone with an ounce of technical capability can install a free database. This is certainly much more effective than passing XLSX files around and getting constantly out of date, out of sync, and overwritten.”
Keith Tyler
software tester
“I was surprised to find such a comprehensive and mature tool for test management in the German market without having taken it seriously beforehand.”
Jörg Großmann
Head of Development at Bank 11
“The reporting is meaningful and provides a good basis for decisions. After the employees have used aqua, they recognize the added value very quickly.”
Thomas Haeske
Head of Organisation/IT at Berlin Hyp
“Manual test cases are easily automated with aqua. Seamless integration with test automation tools helps here.”
Jörn-Hendrick Sörensen
Test Manager at KBA
“Why on Earth wouldn't you want to use a tool that's been developed specifically with managing issues in mind rather than one that you'll have to bend and shape to track data when it's really for tracking numbers?”
John Eckersley
Senior Product Manager at Payroll
“I don't like to use Excel for test cases because it grows into a pain to manage after the first 50 or so. Especially so if there are multiple people working on the same file. No easy way to link defects, no easy way for screenshots, etc. After working with an over complicated Excel project with 700+ test cases, I've seen the horror...”
Reikhard
QA community contributor
“There is zero reason anyone should be using Excel because there's "no database." Anyone with an ounce of technical capability can install a free database. This is certainly much more effective than passing XLSX files around and getting constantly out of date, out of sync, and overwritten.”
Keith Tyler
software tester
Final verdict
aqua is a bleeding-edge test management system with both innovative functionality and polished QA fundamentals. It offers a complete QA experience, extra ALM functionality, and double-digit efficiency gains for tech specialists. Excel was never designed to be a QA tool, and it can’t keep up with the complexity of modern software development.
Winner
FAQ
How do I import data from Excel to a test management tool like aqua?
To import Excel data into aqua, use the Import Assistant: prepare your file, map columns to fields, and follow in-app prompts. A template is available for correct formatting.
How do I use a test management tool like aqua?
Set up your workspace, import requirements, create and run test cases, log defects, leverage integrations, and use dashboards for reporting with aqua.
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