In this blog post, we’re going to compare 14 user acceptance testing tools based on their features, pricing, rating, and best use cases.
When you deliver websites or software for dozens (or hundreds!) of clients, user acceptance testing can get tricky.
Things get out of control. And it becomes paramount to rely on tools to collect and triage feedback efficiently.
These tools helped us reduce user feedback down to a manageable amount, and always ensure our software fit business requirements.
Let’s get to it.
14 Best User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Tools
Here are the best user acceptance testing (UAT) tools in 2023. Compare and pick the one you like most!
1. Marker.io
Get website feedback directly into your favorite tools and perform UAT testing without leaving your website or web app.
Great UAT tools should have:
- An easy-to-use, “one-click” system for end-users to report bugs and give feedback
- Screenshots and annotations to make reports as actionable as possible
- Automatic capture of environment info and console logs
- Deep integration with your existing PM tools (Jira, GitHub, Trello…)
- Support for alpha testing and beta testing test cases
Now for the good news: Marker.io does it all.
Visual annotations
On the tester side, reporting a bug with Marker.io is a 3-steps process:
- Find a bug, and click the button.
- Fill out a report and input details.
- Click on “Create issue”—done!
It’s that simple. Check it out in action:
The editor has plenty of tools to help make the screenshot more visual:
- Arrows
- Text
- Shapes
- …emojis even!
During software testing, it is crucial for users to be able to visually convey what they mean—Marker.io helps do this with powerful annotations.
Deep bug reporting and test case management
User acceptance testing involves many non-technically savvy reporters. Because of this, the quality of bug reports tends to suffer:
- Missing fields
- Wrong category
- No attached screenshot
- No environment info
- No metadata
- …etc!
It’s a real headache for developers to then try to reproduce bugs without this information.
With Marker.io, all technical data is automatically captured with the bug report, and sent directly to your PM tool.
This is a big time-saver for us, as we no longer need a “feedback person” to:
- Look at every report
- Categorize it
- Transfer it into our PM tool or delete it
When it comes to UAT testing, this also saves us tons of time:
- We create UAT test cases ahead of time in Jira, with a Pass/Fail field for each report
- Feedback forms from Marker.io automatically include those fields
- The end user simply needs to choose from one of the fields and click "Create Issue"
2-way integrations
As a project manager, you have two main concerns when it comes to communication with the client:
- Clients and end-users need to be notified when their issues have been resolved
- Developers should never leave their PM tool
This is only possible with Marker.io.
As soon as an issue is “Done” in, say, Jira—that same issue will also be marked as “Resolved” in Marker.io.
Check it out:
You no longer need to have an endless back-and-forth with your clients about which issues are resolved and which still need a bit more work.
Moreover, all comments left by your clients on Marker.io will automatically be synced with the issue in your PM tool (and vice-versa).
Now, your PM tool is your one and only source of truth: if the issue doesn’t exist there, then it doesn’t exist at all!
Guest and member forms
For the end-user, reporting bugs and feedback should be as simple and frictionless as possible.
But when you do internal QA, you’d want to collect as much information as possible from people who are already familiar with your app.
With Marker.io, you get the best of both worlds: Guest forms (for UAT testing) and Member forms (for internal quality assurance).
Using the guest form, your testing team, clients and UAT testers only have to type in what went wrong. Their screenshot is automatically attached.
The member form is a bit more advanced. You can immediately label bug reports or assign issues to a team member.
These forms are also 100% customizable, which means that every time we do a new round of feedback and for every iteration, we can add, remove or adapt fields to ask our users exactly what we want from them.
Session replay
As a developer, when you receive feedback from real-world scenarios, your first action is to try and reproduce that scenario.
But even with all the technical data in the report—your development team sometimes still fails to understand what’s going on.
If only you could see exactly what happened during end-user testing...
Well—Marker.io's toolkit includes session replay for that reason.
Straight from your PM tool, simply click the “Watch replay” link.
You’ll then be able to watch the last 30 seconds (or more) before the report was submitted.
Check out session replay in action:
We can clearly see this user journey during the UAT process:
- Clicked on "About Us"
- Scrolled down & up
- Tried several times to click on "Contact Us"
- Gave up and reported a bug with the Marker.io widget.
Make sure the Marker.io widget is embedded on the website(s) or app(s) you are working on, and enable session replay in your widget settings. It’s as simple as that!
Marker.io's pricing ranges from $39/mo to $159/mo, with tailor-made plans for Enterprise deals.
Ready to start collecting feedback for your next UAT session? Sign up for Marker.io.
2. UserBrain
Get recordings of people trying out your product.
UserBrain records users trying out your product or website for the first time.
Set up a few UAT test cases—for example, “sign up on my site and start a project”—and experience your app through the eyes of your user.
This is what the tool looks like in action:
Understand what they think, what they love, what frustrates them, and get insights on how to make your product better respond to user needs.
From a user acceptance testing perspective, this helps you:
- Get insights on how first-time users understand your value proposition
- Identify bugs and usability issues
Pricing starts at €249/mo. You can also “pay as you go” for 35€ per tester.
3. FullStory
Deep-dive video analytics for any website or web app.
With FullStory, we can identify where exactly testers get stuck.
In a nutshell, the app records sessions of users and visitors on your app or website.
During UAT testing, FullStory comes in handy to help you understand what steps led to a particular bug and how to reproduce the bug for yourself.
When we do user acceptance testing, we use the app in two ways:
- Straightforward recording. If an error pops up, it will show up in the recording or the console logs. At this stage, it’s pretty easy for us to conclude what happened and how to fix it.
- Abandoned pages/confusion. If a user gets stuck during the testing phase, we can retrace their journey. Then, we set up a meeting to replay the session and ask them what was unclear.
And with the Marker.io integration, we get the best of both worlds: the exact timestamp of when our tester reported a bug—allowing us to investigate what happened seconds before the report.
An alternative to FullStory is LogRocket. Both tools are similar, but LogRocket is a lot cheaper and more accessible.
FullStory offers tailor-made plans based on usage.
4. Amplitude
Event tracking and product analytics at scale.
FullStory allows you to zoom in on one user’s journey through your app.
On the other hand, Amplitude tracks events against a large dataset of users. This creates an exhaustive overview of how testers experience your app.
Case in point: when we released domain join, we had a few reports from users unable to verify their e-mail.
With Amplitude, it was super easy for us to verify whether this was a larger-scale issue.
All we had to do was input the events we were interested in observing:
- created_account: all users who created an account;
- where signup_method=self: by themselves (as opposed to someone inviting them to the platform);
- email_verified: and managed to verify their e-mail.
Then, we select the timeframe we want to observe, for example, “in the last two days,” since that is when we released the new feature:
Back then, we noticed that only ~70% of users could verify their e-mail!
Thankfully, this number looks a lot better now.
Without Amplitude, it would have taken us a lot more time to notice this.
The tool also makes it possible to view or download the list of users who encountered the problem:
This means we can:
- Check the user’s journey in FullStory during user acceptance testing;
- Contact this user and ask them what went wrong to verify acceptance criteria;
- Check what steps were taken, directly in Amplitude to understand workflows;
- Verify technical information about the user and event: device, time of event, plan, emails they’ve received from us, etc.
Amplitude offers tailor-made plans based on usage.
5. Sentry
Performance monitoring and advanced error tracking
Sentry helps us keep a good general overview of all errors and console logs from both the frontend and the backend.
We also receive an alert every time something goes wrong during our user acceptance testing sessions.
Any time a critical error occurs, we receive a message in a dedicated Slack channel so we can look into it straight away.
For example, in this case, we had forgotten to define a component in our app.
This generated a ReferenceError for the user during beta testing. And even though they didn’t write a bug report about it—we received an alert on Slack.
Pricing starts at $26/mo.
6. Contentsquare
AI insights and customer journey analytics.
Contentsquare turns visitor data into actionable reports.
Gather insights about user intent like:
- Click-through rates (at any granularity level)
- Time before first click
- Exposure rates
- ...and more!
Contentsquare also has the unique ability to analyze “crash trends”. This tells you which actions have caused your website or tool to crash during user acceptance testing.
They also offer tailor-made plans based on usage.
7. Maze
Prototype and usability testing that integrates with design tools.
Maze offers a wide range of user testing tools:
- Prototype testing
- Tree testing
- 5-Second test
- Video recordings
- Participant management
- … and more!
If you need a product or website tested, Maze is the go-to platform.
You can test anything from ad copy to actual MVPs and get instant feedback and insights from testers—within hours, they claim.
This works at any stage of the software development lifecycle:
- Design & prototypes
- Beta testing
- Alpha testing
- User acceptance testing
- Functional testing
- Regression testing
- Live testing
Pricing starts at $50/month (with custom plans for Enterprise deals).
8. UserReport
Survey and feedback widgets for audience development.
Next up on our list of UAT tools is UserReport. They are based on two widgets.
1. The survey widget:
- Gathers data on who your testers are during external user acceptance testing
- Uses Net Promoter Score to tell you how much users like you and what they think you can do better
2. The feedback widget:
- Helps gather bug reports and feedback for functional testing
- Has a built-in feature prioritization tool where users can vote on the features they want to see next
- Is 100% customizable
Both widgets work in unison to help you collect insights about your users and help you build a better product.
UserReport is currently free.
9. Qualaroo
On-page surveys, user feedback and website UX insights.
Qualaroo’s signature feature is its on-page surveys, which allow you to gather insights from your users while they browse your website.
Is your user visiting…
- Your pricing page? Have a pop-up survey to ask them if they think your product is too expensive.
- A blog post? Have them leave some feedback.
- Your sign-up flow? Ask them if they get stuck or confused.
With tailored feedback forms, you’ll get in-context insights about your users’ experience as they go through your website during user acceptance testing.
Plus, Qualaroo offers dozens of pre-made questionnaire templates to help you ask the best questions about:
- UX
- Usability
- Navigation
- And more!
Starts at $80/month, scaling with number of pageviews.
10. UserTesting
First-hand insights and recordings of people trying out your product.
If you want to literally “hear it from the user”, UserTesting is the user acceptance testing tool you’re looking for.
In just a few clicks, UserTesting puts your website or tool in the hands of your target audience.
Then, they record their very first experience with your product, which allows you to identify key moments in their journey:
- Pain points
- Frustrations
- Needs
Just like if you were next to them!
Pricing: Tailor-made plans based on usage.
11. Crazy Egg
Heatmaps and A/B testing.
At its heart, Crazy Egg was made for continuous testing rather than user acceptance testing.
With that said, their unique A/B testing feature makes it easy to test many versions of your website or tool at a granular level.
Test multiple elements at once and use the data to increase your conversions ahead of time.
And, of course, Crazy Egg pioneered heatmaps, which means you get access to:
- Heatmap reports. Show the highest areas of click activity on your entire site;
- Scrollmap reports. Understand what call-to-action makes visitors stop;
- Confetti reports. See all individual clicks on your site and segment them (by device, location, etc.)
- …and more page-specific reports!
Pricing starts at $29/month.
12. Hotjar
Heatmaps, recordings, and surveys for user behavior analytics.
Hotjar’s features are excellent to gather insights during user acceptance testing:
- Heatmaps. Visualize users as they navigate your site: where they scroll, click, and move, to understand how users behave.
- Recordings. Zoom in on specific user sessions and watch the full recording to get a sense of how they use your website or software.
- Feedback. Embed a small box on your site for visitors to let you know how they feel at any time.
- Surveys. Validate your ideas in real-time by sending users targeted surveys about their experience.
Hotjar starts at $66/mo. Pricing scales with how many sessions you need to record.
13. UsabilityHub
Navigation tests for usability testing and UX research.
UsabilityHub is a platform with a suite of tools that help you identify bugs and issues as you run user acceptance testing.
This UAT tool helps you answer questions like:
- How quickly can users find information on my website?
- Do users understand how my interface functions?
- Will my sign-up flow convert well?
Our favorite feature is navigation tests.
Give your users a task, and see:
- How many of them manage to complete the task;
- What path do they take;
- Where they get stuck or frustrated.
During acceptance testing, this helps uncover critical paths in your UI—and fix them before your tool or website gets released to the public.
They start at $79/month, with tailored plans available.
14. Useberry
User flows and prototype testing.
Useberry focuses on gathering insights from your users at the prototype stage.
Because it integrates with many design tools like Figma, Adobe XD, or InVision, UseBerry is perfect to get early feedback on your ideas and start running tests before your website is even live.
There are plenty of tasks to choose from:
- First click tests. When your testers are given a task, where will they first click?
- 5-second tests. Show users a page for 5 seconds, then ask them what the page is about.
- Preference tests. Ask people which of your designs they find the most appealing.
- … and more!
Our favorite task is tree testing.
Tree testing helps check the hierarchical structure of your website or app as early as user acceptance testing.
In other words: how easy is it to find information on your site, or complete a task (for example, a sign-up flow) within your app?
The best part is that Useberry also shows recordings of your participants going through tasks.
Pricing starts at $33/month.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is user acceptance testing?
User acceptance testing is a phase of a web project life cycle where your ideal customers test your app or website in a production-like environment.
It’s the phase after your internal QA testing and before you push your site to everyone, and a staple in agile software development teams.
If you'd like to learn more, check out our full guide on UAT: What Is User Acceptance Testing (UAT) And How to Do It Right
What are user acceptance testing tools?
User acceptance testing tools help you zoom in on a user's journey during alpha testing or beta testing.
They assist you during the user acceptance testing process and uncover usability as well as functional issues.
Although there is an overlap, UAT tools are not usability testing tools:
- Usability testing is about making sure testers can complete tasks without being hindered.
- User acceptance testing is about observing real users and figuring out if they are satisfied with the new feature/product.
What are the different phases of UAT?
It is important to understand that UAT only occurs after internal QA. Terms and definitions are blurry and used interchangeably across companies.
With that said, the different phases of UAT are:
- Internal user acceptance testing. Have your non-techy coworkers and business stakeholders try out the product and business processes.
- External user acceptance testing, or alpha testing. There, friends and family members test the product.
- Beta testing. Actual users or potential users carry out the testing.
What are the different types of testing for UAT?
There are a lot of different types of testing and methodologies you can carry out during UAT:
- Functional testing
- Integration testing
- Unit testing
- Automated testing
- System testing
- Validation testing
For all of these, you’ll need strong test management tools—all of which have been outlined in our list.
What is a UAT test plan?
A UAT test plan is a set of test cases used during UAT testing:
- Identify test scenarios and business objectives
- Create UAT test cases
- Execute test cases during internal UAT or with a set of beta testers
- Gather test data, and iterate
If you need a template for a UAT test plan or for your test cases (whichever PM tool you prefer using), check out our user acceptance testing templates.
How do you create UAT test cases?
Since most project management tools do not have test cases as a feature, you'll have to create your own system.
Typically, this involves custom fields and forms to ensure you gather all the data you need for your testing process:
- Summary
- Test case steps
- Test case expected results
- Pass/Fail custom field
We've written a tutorial for creating test cases in Jira—it should be similar (and easier!) for other tools.
What is a UAT environment?
Your UAT environment is a staging environment for public testing purposes—and therefore perfect for UAT execution.
It should closely mirror your production environment. Don’t fall into thinking, “Well, this is just another testing environment. It doesn’t need to be perfect”.
The reason is simple: with an accurate clone, if something doesn’t work in staging, it won’t work in production either.
So there you have it: a list of the 14 best UAT tools out there.
We hope we helped you make a decision in choosing a tool for your next user acceptance tests—and ensure sign-off for production!
Did we miss one? Let us know!
