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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
Which TMS Comes Out on Top?
aqua and Katalon both cover test management, but they come at it from opposite ends. aqua is a single ALM workspace for requirements, tests and defects, hosted in the EU. Katalon is an agentic automation platform where authoring, test management and execution carry separate licences. Which one fits your team depends on where your testing effort sits today.
Key differences between aqua and Katalon
aqua Intelligence covers requirements, test cases and test data in one workspace, on every paid plan
aqua hosts in the EU with GDPR and DORA compliance, plus On-Premise and Private Cloud
aqua provides custom report layouts, pivot tables and individual per-user permissions
How we compare
AI
A mature AI layer in a test management solution should go well beyond simple test generation. Here is what to expect from a tool genuinely built for AI-powered QA:
- Generate full test cases from plain text descriptions or requirements documents
- Create test data automatically to populate and run your tests
- Generate and edit requirements with AI assistance
- Update existing tests automatically after a requirement changes
- Keep AI grounded in your own project data, without using it for model training
aqua Intelligence is included in every paid plan across both the Test Management and Requirement Management modules. Supported formats include BDD and user stories, with test design techniques such as boundary value analysis and equivalence partitioning applied automatically. Images, PDFs and UML diagrams can be used as input for requirements and test cases. Teams save approximately 12.8 hours per tester per week, and 42% of AI-generated test cases require no editing at all, according to aqua’s published figures. Katalon runs a set of named AI agents across its platform: a Requirement Review agent, a Test Case Generation agent, an Autonomous Test Runner that executes manual tests end to end, a Bug Reporter agent, and a Reporting and Root Cause Analysis agent. Katalon also ships an MCP server that connects Claude, Copilot or ChatGPT to test authoring and management. Both vendors now run AI without credit limits on paid plans.
Verdict: aqua leads on requirement-to-test depth in one workspace; Katalon leads on agentic execution, AI tooling breadth and MCP.
Test management
Test management is the core reason most teams evaluate these tools, but depth varies significantly between platforms. These are the capabilities that separate a complete solution from a basic one:
- Create, execute, share, and manage test cases in a unified workspace
- Group tests into scenarios and assign custom labels
- Navigate the test suite quickly with filters and shared team views
- Access the full execution history for every test case
- Store a complete audit log of item changes for compliance purposes
- Visualise requirements coverage and dependencies across test cases
aqua and Katalon both provide solid foundations: test cases, test plans, custom fields, execution history, and change logs. aqua includes configurable workflows, shared views, and adaptive field logic on all paid plans. Katalon (via TestOps) provides centralised management for manual and automated tests, with real-time dashboards and test orchestration. Configurable workflows and shared team views are available in aqua at every paid tier. Katalon does not list them in its published plan comparison; workflow customisation appears only in Enterprise agreements.
Integrations
Most QA teams rely on a stack of tools that has been in place for years, and native connectivity to that stack determines how much manual work your team absorbs daily. Genuine integration depth means more than a REST endpoint alone:
- Native integrations with test automation frameworks and tools
- Jira integration with real-time synchronisation
- REST API for connecting additional tooling
- CI/CD and developer ecosystem integrations
aqua provides 14+ native integrations covering the established QA automation stack: Jira, Jenkins, Confluence, JMeter, PowerShell, Database MSSQL, UnixShell, SoapUI, Ranorex, Database Oracle, REST API, Azure DevOps, UFT, and Selenium. Jira integration includes real-time two-way project sync. aqua Capture, a native bug recording tool, is included in all paid plans. Katalon covers a wider developer ecosystem: CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, Bamboo), testing frameworks (Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Cucumber, Jest, Pytest, Robot), cloud execution providers (BrowserStack, LambdaTest, SauceLabs), and ALM tools (Jira, qTest, TestRail, Xray, Zephyr). Katalon also connects to Git source control (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure Repos) and ingests Playwright results.
Pricing flexibility
Pricing structure matters as much as the headline number, and tools that gate features behind higher tiers or charge full price for every user type can become far more expensive than they first appear. These are the key factors worth examining:
- Transparent per-module pricing
- Monthly billing option
- Free or lower-cost licences for stakeholders and lighter users
- Custom Enterprise plan for larger organisations
aqua uses modular per-product pricing across three named licences. The Requirement Management and Test Management modules are each €89/month per user billed annually. The Test Runner DEV licence is available at €19/month for developers and QA specialists who execute tests but are not involved in test or requirement management. Guest seats are included free in every plan. A Concurrent Licence with shared concurrent access is also available for distributed teams, with pricing discussed individually. The aqua Suite License bundles the full ALM package for €99/month in Private Cloud or On-Premise. Katalon sells three tiers: Katalon Studio at $84 per seat per month annually for the first three seats and $150 from the fourth, True Automation with test management at $167, and custom-priced Enterprise. Execution carries its own licence on top of seats: $1,749 a year per Runtime Engine licence and $1,899 a year per parallel TestCloud session. A five-person team with one of each lands near $12,700 a year.
Verdict: aqua wins: one seat price covers execution, and Guest seats are free. With Katalon, running the tests you authored is a separate line item.
Deployment Models
Many vendors avoid publishing their deployment limitations clearly, and this matters most in regulated industries such as banking, insurance, government, and healthcare. These are the options worth verifying before committing:
- Vendor-managed Cloud hosting with GDPR compliance
- Dedicated or isolated Cloud environment for Enterprise customers
- On-Premise installation within your own infrastructure
aqua has offered On-Premise deployment since its first release and continues to provide it through the aqua Suite License alongside Private Cloud. Katalon also offers On-Premise deployment for TestOps, launched for organisations with strict compliance requirements. Katalon’s options include Public SaaS, Private SaaS (single-tenant), and On-Premises. Katalon holds ISO 27001 and SOC 2. aqua holds ISO 27001 and runs GDPR- and DORA-compliant hosting on EU servers, which decides most banking, insurance and public-sector evaluations in Europe.
Dashboards
QA dashboards serve two purposes simultaneously: helping the team track daily progress and giving stakeholders visibility into quality health without requiring full tool access. A strong implementation needs to cover the following:
- Display any workspace data, not just a predefined widget set
- Support both private and team-shared dashboards
- Offer a variety of chart and visualisation types
- Trigger KPI alerts when a metric crosses a threshold
aqua offers fully custom dashboards on all paid plans, drawing on any workspace data, and includes KPI Alerts that notify users when a metric moves above or below a defined threshold. Katalon (TestOps) provides configurable dashboards with real-time visibility into testing progress, untested areas and release readiness, plus custom dashboards and widgets on True Automation. Automated threshold-based KPI Alerts are not a feature Katalon offers.
Reporting
The gap between a useful stakeholder report and a basic metrics export is where tools diverge most significantly. A mature reporting layer should give teams full control over the following:
- Pre-built report templates as a starting point
- Fully custom layouts with drag-and-drop and formatting controls
- Support for any workspace data, pivot tables, and scripts
- External text, image, and data embedding for stakeholder reports
aqua provides a fully configurable reporting system with drag-and-drop layouts, pivot tables, custom scripts, parametrised reports, external text and image insertion, and both template-based and bespoke report creation. Reports can be shared externally. Katalon provides traceability and coverage reports, flaky test detection and export with advanced sharing settings. It has no report builder: saved templates, drag-and-drop layouts, pivot tables and scripted reports are available in aqua only.
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.
- Default and custom role definitions
- Per-user permission overrides beyond role-level access
- SSO for enterprise identity management
aqua includes granular roles and permissions on all paid plans, with custom roles available to every customer. Per-user permission settings go beyond role-level assignments. Katalon provides role-based access control via TestOps with default roles available across plans, and SSO on the Scale/Enterprise plan. Per-user individual permissions beyond roles are not supported.
ALM
Full application lifecycle management in a single tool reduces vendor licences and keeps traceability intact across every stage of development. A complete offering needs to span the following:
- Requirements management with AI assistance and coverage tracking
- Test case management linked directly to those requirements
- Project and workflow management across the full team
aqua provides full ALM coverage through its modular licences: Requirement Management and Test Management, purchasable individually or together via the aqua Suite License. Katalon covers ALM across four separately licensed products: Studio for authoring, TestOps for test management, TestCloud for execution and TrueTest for production insights. Both tools connect test cases to requirements and support project management workflows.
What people say
Here are a few things people like and dislike about both tools.
“I loved how easy it was to migrate to aqua. It was our first test management solution, and we liked what we saw in the demo. It took less than a week to get started with the full version. Our testing was a bunch of Excel spreadsheets before, and aqua provides a completely different level of convenience and transparency.”
Anna R.
E-commerce manager
“I like Katalon's user interface as It is easy to use, user friendly and can be implemented easily. I also like its extensive automation testing capabilities which can be easily integrated with various tools and frameworks. The issues that I noticed with Katalon is that it hangs when running complex automation scenarios or executing multiple test suites. Application gets freeze for some time when switching from one test case tab to another.”
Sunny K.
System Engineer
“My personal favourite is the reporting functionality. Basic templates often do the job, but the customisation is almost PowerBi-deep (at least for our purposes). I also use dashboards to track the state of test cases in real-time.”
Vladimir R.
Leader, service MENA
“I really love how easy it makes the automation process, besides how easy to use and understand this program is. However, it can improve the execution on mobile devices. It happened to me many times in the past that during execution the session just closes itself so the automation fails.”
Kimberly M.
QA Manager
“I loved how easy it was to migrate to aqua. It was our first test management solution, and we liked what we saw in the demo. It took less than a week to get started with the full version. Our testing was a bunch of Excel spreadsheets before, and aqua provides a completely different level of convenience and transparency.”
Anna R.
E-commerce manager
“My personal favourite is the reporting functionality. Basic templates often do the job, but the customisation is almost PowerBi-deep (at least for our purposes). I also use dashboards to track the state of test cases in real-time.”
Vladimir R.
Leader, service MENA
“I like Katalon's user interface as It is easy to use, user friendly and can be implemented easily. I also like its extensive automation testing capabilities which can be easily integrated with various tools and frameworks. The issues that I noticed with Katalon is that it hangs when running complex automation scenarios or executing multiple test suites. Application gets freeze for some time when switching from one test case tab to another.”
Sunny K.
System Engineer
“I really love how easy it makes the automation process, besides how easy to use and understand this program is. However, it can improve the execution on mobile devices. It happened to me many times in the past that during execution the session just closes itself so the automation fails.”
Kimberly M.
QA Manager
Final verdict
aqua is one ALM workspace: requirements, tests, defects and reporting under a single licence, hosted in the EU under GDPR and DORA, with aqua Intelligence on every paid plan and no separate charge for running tests. Katalon is an agentic automation platform with a deep AI agent stack, an MCP server and broad CI/CD coverage. Its seats, execution engine and cloud sessions are billed separately, and it has no report builder, no KPI Alerts and no individual per-user permissions.
Winner
FAQ
What are the limitations of Katalon Studio compared to aqua?
Katalon Studio is an authoring IDE; test management and execution sit in separate licences. Against aqua it has no report builder, so no saved templates, pivot tables or scripted reports. It also has no KPI Alerts and no per-user permissions beyond roles. Configurable workflows and audit logs appear only in Enterprise agreements, while aqua includes them on every paid plan.
How much does Katalon cost in 2026?
Katalon Studio starts at $84 per seat per month annually for the first three seats, $150 from the fourth. True Automation with test management is $167. Running tests in CI carries its own licence: $1,749 a year per Runtime Engine and $1,899 a year per parallel cloud session. aqua charges €89 per user per month with execution included and free Guest seats.
Which types of companies typically use Katalon or aqua?
Katalon is used by companies seeking AI-augmented automation for web, API, mobile, and desktop testing. Enterprises needing advanced test management, custom reporting, and regulated-industry compliance typically choose platforms like aqua.
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