

Mogotest: Web Testing Made Easier - nirvdrum
http://mogotest.com/
We're a TechStars Boston 2010 company that is launching our front-end Web testing service.  Mogotest significantly reduces the pain Web developers and designers face when making sites work in all the various browsers.<p>We've been running in alpha &#38; beta for about 6 months now, while we've bootstrapped the company (save for the small TechStars investment).  We believe -- and more importantly, so do our users -- that we have something useful to the larger Web development community.<p>Any feedback is appreciated and my co-founder and I will answer any questions the best we can.  And thanks to being such a great resource for startups!
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tom
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.

Big props to them on their launch.

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SpikeGronim
Cool site but I was expecting to see a screenshot of my page in each browser.
Besides validation errors I also care about layout.

<http://www.webpagetest.org/> provides that feature (for IE 7/8), I have been
using it frequently.

EDIT: Found the right link, sorry for the confusion.

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nirvdrum
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.

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duck
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.

~~~
nirvdrum
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.

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duck
No problem. I really like how you handled errors and the ability to browse
them. That is a cool feature.

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nirvdrum
A long delayed reply, but this UI has been significantly cleaned up into a
simple browser compatibility report.

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bockris
see also, SauceLabs

<http://saucelabs.com/>

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evlapix
What other competitors does Mogo have?

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?

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nirvdrum
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.

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evlapix
No apologies needed. That's is a solid summary. It also confirms my research.
I appreciate it.

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nirvdrum
Just to follow-up, we do have automated issue detection now. So, we're able to
detect a whole class of rendering problems and report just the pages you
should look at in the browsers that seem problematic.

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bosch
<http://microsoft.com> freezes it on the last 10%... I canceled after it
didn't complete in 110 seconds.

~~~
nirvdrum
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?

~~~
bosch
Ya, it's working now.

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Croaky
Great service. It's next feature should be auto-IE compatibility.

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nirvdrum
We now have auto detection of errors, so we can report rendering failures in
IE without you having to do it manually. Auto fixes are still a long way off
:-)

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hotmind
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?

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nirvdrum
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.

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mechanical_fish
That's nicely said and very polite.

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.

~~~
hotmind
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.

I wish you luck with Mogotest!

