Ask HN: Please review my automated web testing startup, Browsera

14 points by jeffy 16 years ago | 8 comments

http://www.browsera.com

I'd like to get some feedback on my automated web testing service startup, Browsera.

The service automatically detects major cross-browser rendering differences as well as scripting errors, and also provides screenshots. A significant difference from Browsershots/Litmus/BrowserLab/Superpreview is that it actually analyzes live DOMs and reports differences. And, its got features that allow it to crawl your site and even test pages behind login walls.

If you're a web developer or tester, please give it a try and let me know what you think.

poronski 16 years ago |

Technical side - neat, very neat. I like it a lot.

Business side - the recurrent pricing model does not make any sense whatsoever. Unless someone is actively developing the site or manually changes the content on a daily basis, per-use charges is what is expected.

There is certainly a market for enterprise-ish application of your idea, when the site is routinely modified several times a week by marketing and product people and such. But then your Basic plan basically will easily cover the needs of a small/middle size corporation with extensive online presence. Additionally, beware of the existing services like Keynote that already target that segment and that will be copying your idea in a matter of weeks.

lazyant 16 years ago |

This is very useful, good work.

I suggest a change in the pricing model to adjust to the most likely use from customers (many would like just a one-shot), something like:

- "Test" (one time): $29

- "Project" (one month): $199

- "Enterprise" (one year): $890

("Enterprise" can be dropped).

All of them can have say, 1000 pages or pages/month and 5 or whatever users, and then there can be a small additional extra per 1000 more pages or 5 more users.

ScottWhigham 16 years ago |

I mean, wow - I'm totally impressed and will probably become a paying customer. If the free version works out to be as impressive as the sample, I'm sold!

jeffy 16 years ago | |

Thanks for the kind words, always working on improving the accuracy, but we've had pretty good success so far, even on the production versions of some of the most popular sites.

bluebird 16 years ago |

This seems like a very useful service. I think that you may be losing quite a lot of business by jumping from free to $49 directly.

There is probably a sweet spot at around $19 for say 250 pages and login support that would attract a lot of hobbyists/developers who work on one web app or a couple of sites and wouldn't pay $49 a month for something like this.

Perhaps you should try it out.

cgherb911 16 years ago |

I like how your start up actually helps solve a real problem. Who's your competition? Does the subscription model make sense?

jeffy 16 years ago | |

That's a good question, and one I've been thinking about a lot. Pricing is a tricky thing, so I went ahead and used the competitors models for pricing based on subscription.

It's certainly possible a per page or per test model might work better, but I haven't heard users ask for it yet.

cgherb911 16 years ago | |

nvm on competition, I forgot to delete that part...