Katalon
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if your QA team needs unified test automation plus test management and can absorb per-node CI fees.
Comparison
Katalon vs Cypress
Katalon lands on Depends, and Cypress lands on Worth it.
Cypress
Worth it
Confidence: High
Buy if you're a JavaScript team that needs free, well-documented E2E and component testing for web apps.
| Compare | Katalon | Cypress |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Worth it |
| Best for | QA teams automating web, mobile, API, desktop | JavaScript teams doing E2E web testing |
| Who it's not for | Solo devs doing simple smoke tests . Selenium IDE is free | Non-coders wanting record-and-playback QA |
| Privacy | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.² | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed. |
| Support quality | Reviewers praise responsive support and active community. | No support-quality evidence in sources |
| Public sentiment | Feedback is split: beginners praise the templates, support, and community, while experienced testers sometimes leave for plain-code frameworks.10 | Developers love the developer experience, docs, and live preview but gripe about troubleshooting Cypress tasks and paid parallelization. |
| Biggest gotcha | Runtime Engine for CI/parallel runs is paid per node; 5 engineers plus 2 nodes modeled at $7,200-$9,600/yr.⁴ | Open source is free, but Cloud for parallelizing across multiple machines gets expensive |
Pick Katalon when
- QA teams automating web, mobile, API, desktop
- Low-code testers with light coding skills
- Teams wanting management and execution in one tool
- Jira shops open to AI-written test cases
When Katalon is not a fit
- Solo devs doing simple smoke tests . Selenium IDE is free
- Code-first teams happier in Playwright or in-house frameworks
- Small teams that can't absorb per-node CI execution fees
- Buyers needing transparent upfront pricing . Enterprise is quote-only
Pick Cypress when
- JavaScript teams doing E2E web testing
- Frontend component testing
- Small teams wanting free tooling
- Debug-heavy UI work with live preview
When Cypress is not a fit
- Non-coders wanting record-and-playback QA
- Teams needing Safari/WebKit coverage (Guess: Playwright fits better)
- Projects that mostly need unit tests
- Native mobile app testing
Sources
- Katalon official sitekatalon.comofficial
- Katalon product security pagekatalon.comsecurity
- Katalon Pricing Page Hubpricingpagehub.comreview
- Katalon Pricing: Studio vs Runtime Engine (Autonoma AI)getautonoma.comreview
- Vendr: Katalon Studio pricingvendr.comreview
- Katalon Review 2026 . AI Testing Guideaitestingguide.comreview
- Software Advice: Katalon Studio reviewssoftwareadvice.comreview
- Trustpilot: katalon.com reviewstrustpilot.comreview
- Tekpon: Katalon reviewstekpon.comreview
review
- Gartner Peer Insights: Katalon True Platformgartner.comreview
- Katalon Studio . Wikipedia (Gartner Visionary 2025)en.wikipedia.orgnews
- LeadIQ: Katalon company overviewleadiq.comnews
- Katalon Docs: trial and subscription plansdocs.katalon.comofficial
official