CheckView vs Ghost Inspector for WordPress Testing

When it comes to automated testing for WordPress sites, choosing the right platform can make all the difference in efficiency, accuracy, and peace of mind. Two popular choices are CheckView and Ghost Inspector, but they serve different needs and offer distinct advantages. In this post, we’ll dive into the key differences between the two platforms and explore which platform makes the most sense for your situation.

1. Focus and Specialization

CheckView is specifically designed for WordPress sites, while Ghost Inspector is a broader web automation testing tool that supports various platforms, not just WordPress.

CheckView:

• Advantages: Its WordPress-specific focus allows it to offer tailored features such as WooCommerce testing, pre-built WordPress test suites and better integration with popular third party plugins and themes that drastically reduces the setup time for WordPress testing. For eCommerce businesses, CheckView excels in WooCommerce checkout and transactional email testing.

• Disadvantages: Being so specialized, it may not be ideal if your testing needs extend beyond WordPress. If you manage multiple platforms alongside WordPress, you might find CheckView’s capabilities too narrow and limited compared to Ghost Inspector.

Ghost Inspector:

• Advantages: It is a versatile tool that can handle testing for multiple platforms and has a deeper feature set than CheckView,. This makes it a solid choice for agencies or businesses with diverse tech stacks.

• Disadvantages: Because it’s not focused on WordPress, you will likely need to invest more time and effort to configure it for WordPress-specific testing scenarios and certain WordPress-specific testing scenarios may be difficult to configure compared to CheckView.

2. Ease of Use

Ease of use is a crucial factor, especially for teams with varying levels of technical expertise or those teams who are not technical in nature.

CheckView:

• Advantages: Designed with simplicity in mind for WordPress users, CheckView is intuitive to set up and use. The platform offers automated test generation specifically tailored to WordPress setups, which minimizes the manual effort required as much as possible.

• Disadvantages: While easy for WordPress users, those looking for advanced customization beyond WordPress might find the platform lacking in flexibility compared to broader tools like Ghost Inspector.

Ghost Inspector:

• Advantages: It offers a wide array of customization and automated options, making it powerful for users who need to create complex tests. It can be an excellent fit for technically proficient teams and has vastly more flexibility than CheckView.

• Disadvantages: The initial setup and learning curve can be steeper, especially for users who are not developers or non-technical. Configuring Ghost Inspector for WordPress-specific scenarios will almost always take more time and expertise.

3. Maintenance and Updates

Keeping tests updated as your WordPress site evolves can be a challenge, especially when new themes, plugins, or WooCommerce updates are rolled out.

CheckView

• Advantages: Functional testing can be synced to when WordPress core updates roll out, ensuring testing is triggered as soon as updates are pushed out, reducing the risk of issues being missed.

• Disadvantages: Limited integration with development CI/CD pipelines restricts how tests can be triggered. Additionally, the platform’s update syncing is tailored specifically to WordPress, which is not as useful for non-WordPress environments.​

Ghost Inspector:

• Advantages: Ghost Inspector is highly customizable, allowing you to configure tests for a wide variety of scenarios that can be triggered based on CI / CD tools such as GitLab, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps and CircleCI.

• Disadvantages: Unlike CheckView, it doesn’t have the option to automatically trigger testing based on WordPress updates, so you may need to invest more time in creating such test triggers for your use cases using CI / CD tools.

4. Cost Considerations

Pricing is often a critical factor when selecting an automated testing platform, especially for small and medium-sized businesses.

CheckView:

• Advantages: CheckView’s pricing is designed for WordPress users, offering cost-effective plans that cater specifically to WordPress site owners. You’re not paying for features that aren’t relevant to your WordPress setup which keeps automated testing as as affordable as possible.

• Disadvantages: If you need a broader toolset that covers more than WordPress, you might find that CheckView’s cost benefits diminish as you end up paying for multiple tools to cover all your needs.

Ghost Inspector:

• Advantages: Ghost Inspector provides a wider range of features and can be a better overall value if you need a tool that works across multiple platforms. The cost can be justified for larger or more complex testing requirements.

• Disadvantages: For WordPress-specific use cases, Ghost Inspector will likely be much more expensive. While powerful, it is often priced higher due to its broad focus, which can be overkill (and more expensive) for WordPress-centric businesses.

5. Support and Community

Good support is essential when you need help configuring tests or resolving issues.

CheckView:

• Advantages: With a focus on WordPress, CheckView’s support team is highly knowledgeable about the WordPress platform, offering specialized assistance that can make a big difference when troubleshooting WordPress-specific automated testing.

• Disadvantages: Because the platform is so niche, the community around it is smaller than that of more generalized tools. This means fewer resources outside of direct support.

Ghost Inspector:

• Advantages: Ghost Inspector has a larger user base and community, which translates into more resources, tutorials, and shared solutions. Its broader focus also means that you can find help for a variety of use cases beyond WordPress.

• Disadvantages: The broader scope of Ghost Inspector means support isn’t always as specialized as it would be with a WordPress-focused tool. You may need to rely more on the community for WordPress-specific issues.

Choosing between CheckView and Ghost Inspector depends on your specific needs. If your primary focus is on WordPress and WooCommerce testing, CheckView offers a specialized, easy-to-use platform with tailored features and support that takes a WordPress-first approach that streamlines automated testing for site owners, developers, and agencies.. However, if you need a robust tool for general web application testing that can handle testing across multiple platforms, Ghost Inspector might be a better fit, despite the extra effort required to optimize it for WordPress.

If your website runs on WordPress and you want a testing platform designed to handle the complexities of the WordPress ecosystem, give CheckView a try for free. You’ll experience the benefits of a solution built with your platform in mind.