Android integration testing: Robotium or UIAutomator? [closed]

Question

I want to setup integration testing for an Android app and I wonder what is better for this: Robotium or recently introduced uiautomator.

I had previous experience using Robotium and this framework is really awesome for integration testing. But recently introduced uiautomator looks nice also.

Currently I see several limitation on uiautomator:

• no xml testing report
• no compatibility (works only on 4.1+)
• no Eclipse support, which means a lot of console work

On the other side, this tool allows you to get rid of application-under-test sandboxing and it is package independent so several applications can be tested together.

Also I know that is it rather easy to make a setup with Maven, Robotium and some CI like Jenkins, but I'm not sure if it is that easy with uiautomator.

I'd like to ask are there any other pitfalls in uiautomator? Or it is better to stick with Robotium currently?

Clishmaclaver

@CommonsWare I've made some edits. Please check out if this is a proper format for a question. Thanks and sorry for misunderstanding the FAQ – Clishmaclaver

That's certainly an improvement -- thanks! – Kinnie

@Kinnie Is there any site on sister site for this type of questions? This is good useful question but of course violated SO FAQ. – Short

@codingcrow: Well, the sort of open-ended discussion originally requested is better for a blog post, or a G+ post, or maybe some relevant Reddit area, etc. StackOverflow and the rest of the StackExchange sites are strictly for Q&A: ask a concrete question, get a concrete answer. – Kinnie

@Kinnie I agree with you but at the same time I think Area51 is where community discuss if a new sister site should be opened on SO and that discussion takes Q&A form. I have no data but looks like SO had become first place of choice for computer community to look for help and Quora/G+/Reddit does not fit in well and has lot of noise. – Short

@Kinnie I've posted this on SO, because a lot of people are watching SO. I thought that this question could be rather interesting in AndroidDev community. If I've posted it on G+, nobody could see this, because I'm not popular on G+ :) – Clishmaclaver

@codingcrow: Well, there's also the android-developers Google Group. Specific third-party products like Robotium have their own lists/groups/support mechanisms. There are other Q&A sites that might be more amenable to open-ended discussions: andglobe.com. – Kinnie

@Clishmaclaver You can visit Area51 and see if you can proposed a site which can take discussion based open ended question and people find it interesting. – Short

@atermenji: Fitting the norms of a community needs to be part of your decision-making process, though, particularly where those norms are documented. Personally, I didn't find your revised question to be out of line, but others did. – Kinnie

I am rather happy to have find this post, and sad to see it was not answered. There are plenty of posts comparing technologies and discussion of progress in the integration of open souce projects. It was a valid post to my mind. – Idealism