Sauce Labs is an on-demand web-based automated testing platform that enables developers to test their websites and apps across more than 700 browser/OS/device combos. It has its headquarters in San Francisco, CA, and was founded in 2008. The Company is known for its transformative approach to application testing, which involves the automatic parallelization of tests across different devices.
In 2020, Sauce Labs won the prestigious Gold Stevie Award for the Software Development Solution Category. This was the second time in a row that Sauce Labs won this award, indicating the Company’s success in continuous product innovation.Â
The Company currently has over 300 employees and boasts more than 3,200 active customers, including household names such as VISA, Walmart, and Alaska Airlines. Despite being a private company, Sauce Labs is widely known as an innovator and industry leader in the testing space. The Company has raised about $151 million in seven funding rounds, the latest one being on March 9th, 2021.
Sauce Labs Business StrategiesÂ
Sauce Labs is one of the most prominent players in the global testing industry. It has pioneered nearly all innovations in this space, including shipping software products with built-in automated testing capabilities (QA automation), SaaS (software as a service) solutions, and smart test platforms.Â
The Company keeps up with technology trends and advances by investing heavily in R&D (research and development). Sauce Labs currently touts more than seven pending patents designed to make testing more efficient and reliable.
Acquisitions are also an integral part of Sauce Labs’ strategy. On July 6th, 2021, it acquired BackTrace, a company known for its cross-platform crash reports and event aggregation platform. In this way, Sauce Labs provides a more comprehensive suite of testing tools to its clients.Â
On March 15th, 2021, it acquired TestFairy, a mobile quality enterprise platform. Such acquisitions also ensure the Company’s customers have access to the best-in-class testing platforms.
Sauce Labs SWOT AnalysisÂ
StrengthsÂ
Continuous growth:
Sauce Labs has successfully managed to grow exponentially over the years. The Company now touts more than 3200 customers, with a presence in more than 150 countries. It remains at the forefront of providing comprehensive testing solutions to its customer base. It also surpassed its 4 billion cumulative testing run milestone, a testament to the credibility of its platform.
Strong brand recognition:
The value proposition offered by Sauce Labs makes it an appealing choice for most customers. As the only platform that combines cross-browser, cross-platform, and continuous testing capabilities with deeper insights into mobile applications, Sauce Labs is renowned for its ability to help companies improve their software quality. The Company also takes full responsibility for all testing needs of its clients through a single end-to-end solution, including test development and execution.
Innovation:
Sauce Labs has been one of the leading innovators in this space for a long time now. It pioneered nearly every innovation in the testing space, including smart testing platforms, SaaS solutions, and on-demand web-based automated testing.
Unique and Extensive product offering:
Sauce Labs offers a highly comprehensive suite of testing tools. This includes browser-based cross-platform capabilities, mobile automation and monitoring, and cloud services that allow users to minimize both time and budget. An extensive API suite is also available to its customers, ensuring the integration of third-party applications with Sauce Labs’ platform.
Weaknesses
Heavy reliance on the American market:
Despite being a global company, Sauce Labs is yet to establish a strong presence in international markets. This also means it is dependent on the health of the American economy for its growth. In times of recession, it might be difficult for the Company to gain market share domestically.
Not enough focus on niche segments:
Sauce Labs has tried to cater to all kinds of testing needs with its comprehensive suite of tools. However, this has led to the neglect of several niche segments. As a result, they now face stiff competition from smaller competitors that have figured out the needs of specific customer segments.
OpportunitiesÂ
Broadening customer base:
In the future, Sauce Labs will look to increase its presence across different regions. International expansion presents a huge opportunity for a company like Sauce Labs, as the market has ample untapped potential. This could help it improve its revenues and expand into new markets.
Expansion of testing suites:
Sauce Labs has a loyal customer base, which trusts the Company to handle its testing needs. It could expand its client base by offering new types of testing solutions that address specific pain points. With its existing infrastructure and expertise, it is well placed to provide further services in this space.
ThreatsÂ
Competition:
The testing tool space is highly competitive, and Sauce Labs faces stiff competition from established industry players. In addition, new entrants are constantly looking to make inroads into this space. The Company will have to work hard to stay ahead of its competitors.
M&A activities:
It is impossible to ignore the threats of acquisitions. Large corporations might look to pick up smaller competitors to expand their offering and customer base. This would put Sauce Labs at risk, so it needs to stay ahead of the curve by innovating and delivering value for its customers.
Sauce Labs Competitor AnalysisÂ
Sauce Labs competes in the continuous testing tools space, providing automated and manual testing across different platforms. The Company has been a leader in many of the critical innovations within this market, including cloud-based solutions, SaaS offerings, cross-platform capabilities, and mobile automation. This section analyzes some of its key competitors in product offering, market share, and strategies to stay ahead of the competition.
1. LambdaTest
LambdaTest is a SaaS-based cross-browser testing platform that helps businesses ensure their websites and applications work on all browsers and platforms. It offers a visual comparison of elements across different browsers, allowing for a side-by-side view of how an element appears. This tool also ensures developers can validate the layout across different devices to determine the UX flow.
LamndaTest has its headquarters in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 2017 and is trusted by over 500,000 users worldwide. LambdaTest has raised $25 million after a series of four fundings, the latest being $16 million in June 2021, led by Sequoia India. With this amount of funding, it is well-equipped to compete with Sauce Labs in critical markets.
The Company leverages its Cloud Infrastructure and Private Network to support its Multi-Client capability, allowing multiple users to access the same testing session simultaneously. LambdaTest is an excellent option for developers who want to test their websites and applications across different browsers quickly with its focus on simplicity.
It also enjoys strong partnerships and an extensive clientele, including industry leaders such as Cisco, Deloitte, TrustPilot, Apple, and Microsoft. Although LambdaTest offers cross-browser testing across all major browsers, it is still in its early days. Sauce Labs will need to ramp up its efforts to ensure that this competitor does not eat into its market share.
2. AWS Device FarmÂ
AWS Device Farm is a cloud-based automated app testing service that enables developers to test, debug, and interact with their android, iOS, and web apps on real devices. It provides access to high-resolution displays, GPS services, accelerometers, and more to help developers test the performance of their apps.
AWS Device Farm is part of the bigger Amazon Web Services umbrella, which gives it strong access to the latter’s market dominance. With its massive customer base and robust infrastructure, AWS Device Farm is well-positioned to take on Sauce Labs in this space. However, most reviewers on TrustRadius think that AWS Device Farm offers better functionality than Sauce Labs, but its functionality is sometimes limited.
AWS as a whole boasts 190 chapters with more than 40,000 employees overseeing operations. The Company is known for its agility and flexibility, allowing it to stay ahead of the curve by quickly incorporating newer technologies into its services.
Despite being a subsidiary of one of the largest e-commerce platforms, AWS Device farm focuses on quality and customer satisfaction. The Company offers dedicated support channels to ensure its customers have a seamless experience. Sauce Labs must continue to expand its product offering and customer base, as AWS Device Farm’s reach is widening.Â
3. Eggplant
Eggplant is a SaaS-based software testing tool that automates functional, regression, and load testing. It enables users to build dynamic test cases without scripting with its Intelligent Testing Automation functionality.
Eggplant serves as an essential link between developers and testers as it automates the entire testing process from start to finish. This provides developers with complete visibility into the testing process, allowing them to pinpoint and resolve issues quickly. The quick feedback loop helps developers build quality software that satisfies market needs and business demands.
The Company has its headquarters in London, England, and was founded in 2008. It is present in over 30 countries with more than 350 customers using its tools. In 2019, Gartner recognized Eggplant as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Software Test Automation.
Keysight Technologies acquired Eggplant in June 2020 for $330 million. This was before Eggplant acquired NCC Group’s Web Performance Division in March 2019. As a subsidiary of a major technology company, Eggplant is well-positioned to compete with Sauce Labs.Â
4. SmartBear TestComplete
TestComplete is a cross-platform automated testing tool that enables users to run tests on mobile devices, browsers, and operating systems. It allows for the configuration of more than 2000 browsers, OSs, and mobile devices. Founded in 1999, it has its headquarters in Somerville, MA.
TestComplete has an impressive clientele of industry leaders such as Adobe Systems, J.P.Morgan. It boasts strong partnerships with some of the biggest names in tech, such as HP and IBM. TestComplete’s global reach is a testament to its ability to deliver quality services to users worldwide.
As Sauce Labs expands its product offering to include additional software testing services, it faces intense competition from TestComplete. Sauce Labs has established itself as an industry leader, but to stay ahead of the curve, it must continue innovating and ensuring that its products are compatible with all platforms.
In 2019, Gartner named SmartBear TestComplete top ahead of Tricentis and Eggplant in the Magic Quadrant for Software and Test Automation. This report showcases the abilities and services of each Company, providing users with a way to compare similar products.
5. Perfecto
Perfecto is a SaaS-Cloud-based testing tool that enables users to test seamlessly across multiple browsers, platforms, and devices. It boasts a clientele of Fortune 500 companies such as Lyft, Merck, and IBM. Perfecto has its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
It has about 300 employees who work hard to ensure the Company’s customers experience a fluid and rapid testing process. The Company caters to new and existing clients with ever-changing needs and can respond quickly to market demands.Â
Perforce acquired Perfecto in 2018 for $200 million. Later on, in 2021, Perforce made moves by launching Perfecto scriptless automation. This transformation gives Perfecto several distinct advantages over Sauce Labs. With scriptless automation, clients can test their apps and websites without writing any codes. This enables developers to test and push data faster, resulting in a rapid feedback loop.
As Sauce Labs continues its attempts at innovation, it will face diminishing margins as Perfecto gains traction with customers. Despite Sauce Labs’s superior technology and clientele, both may not be enough to keep Sauce Labs afloat if Perfecto continues to roll out new products.
How Sauce Labs Stands Out Against Its CompetitorsÂ
As organizations evolve their Web and mobile applications to take advantage of the latest technologies, Sauce Labs continues to stay ahead of the curve by staying focused on its core values: Transparency, Constant improvement, Respect for individuality, Ideas over Hierarchy, and ownership mentality.Â
Sauce Labs leverages its sense of community to improve itself, an open-source mindset that’s rare in the world of cloud-based testing software. For example, Sauce Labs participates in the EuroStar Software Testing Conference, where it meets its partners and clients while also presenting new product updates.
Its proprietary cloud infrastructure allows Sauce Labs to scale up operations when necessary. This infrastructure is composed of servers that are distributed worldwide. These servers operate at high speeds, ensuring an optimal testing experience for users around the world.
Sauce Labs creates compelling integrations with tools designed to enhance existing features and capabilities through its Technology Alliance Program. This creates a platform that offers the best testing experience for customers and helps them build better products.
Sauce Labs also offers extensive training and certification opportunities to help customers get the most out of their product. It educates its users on how to take full advantage of Sauce Labs’ extensive feature set and create a best-in-class testing experience through hands-on training sessions, webcasts, and conferences around the world.
Sauce Labs Competitor Analysis (FAQs)
Question: How to choose the best alternatives to Sauce Labs?
Answer: Sauce Labs is one of the top companies in its industry, but there are similar products available. To find the best alternative to Sauce Labs, ask yourself what features and functionalities you need for your organization. You should then research how you can achieve this through other options on the market. After that, compare Sauce Labs to its alternatives.Â
Question: What are Sauce Labs Main Competitors?
Answer: Sauce Labs’ main competitors include LambdaTest, AWS Device Form, Eggplant, Perfecto, and TestComplete. Other players in the market include; xRunner, CrossBrowserTesting, BrowserStack, and Browserling.
Question: What are some of Sauce Labs Competitive advantages?
Answer: Sauce Labs has a better set of features than its competitors, with an offering tailored to the needs of modern software development teams. It provides its users with the most modern testing technology, automating tests more quickly and efficiently. Sauce Labs also offers multi-platform support for Mac OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android operating systems. It supports a wide range of browsers and popular frameworks/languages.
Conclusion
Sauce Labs has maintained its dominance in the cloud-based testing market. It is likely to remain a leader for the foreseeable future due to its dominance in having the latest technology and catering to customers’ needs. Despite facing tough competition, Sauce Labs has the potential to continue its reign in this market. In doing so, it will continue to implement its community-driven approach and closed-loop systems.
Further Reads:
- ADP Competitors Analysis: Is Their Market Position Stable?
- YouTube Competitors Analysis: Top 4 Competitors
- Deloitte Competitors Analysis
- UPS Competitors Analysis: Top 5 Competitors
- Touch of Modern Competitors Analysis
- Dan Bilzerian Bio - December 9, 2022
- OLA Model Explained - November 23, 2022
- Service Value Chain Explained - November 23, 2022