Hi everyone, co-founder of Mobile.dev and co-author of Maestro here . Thanks jstan for sharing Maestro and for the kind words—really glad to hear it’s working well for you!
We built Maestro because E2E testing felt unnecessarily complicated, and we wanted something simple and powerful that anyone could use — whether you’re a seasoned developer or just getting started with automation. It’s been amazing to see it adopted at companies like Meta, Block, DoorDash, Stripe, and Disney, but honestly, what excites us most is seeing teams who’ve never done test automation before finally get a solid strategy in place because Maestro is so easy to use and get started with.
Oh, and if you’re wondering — yes, it works for web testing too!
We’re constantly iterating and adding features, so if you’ve got ideas, run into issues, or just want to chat, let me know. Always happy to hear how we can make it better.
Thanks again for checking it out, and happy testing!
Hey tibbe - co-founder of Mobile.dev here. First off, totally get where you're coming from. We do offer a startup discount, but would love to dig in more to see if there's something we can work out. My co-founder and I would love to chat if you're open to it! Just shoot me a note if interested! leland@mobile.dev
Yep free and open-source to use. Plenty of folks run Maestro on directly on GitHub Actions, Bitrise, etc. Teams often run on our hosted cloud infra for parallelism and reliability when scaling up their testing, but that's totally up to you!
Trying this out at work and so far it has been leagues better than other mobile automation tools. I have just gotten started but it has been encouraging.
Maestro is great. However it lacks so many important features you might need
For example, Maestro does not let you to coordinate multiple flow tests together. One test case I had is one phone initiating a call, and another answers it. Instead, Maestro prefers that every flow is self contained and will not run both in parallel reliably
I found many such limitations in its design only after writing a whole lot of their custom flow syntax
First of all, I didn't make this, let me be clear, and I don't work for the company Mobile.dev.
I've been looking for a replacement for Appium because the documentation for that site is absolutely garbage. Maestro boils everything down to YAML and runs its own test server so that you don't have to worry about connecting to the device drivers. It's missing an API but who needs an API when the CLI is so beautiful.
Does anyone know of anything on par with this that I should try? So far this has knocked my socks off.
Hi Jztan, glad you're exploring this space! I'm the co-founder of MobileBoost, and I'd love to introduce our product, GPT Driver (https://www.mobileboost.io/).
We started two years ago with an AI-native approach, which is particularly useful for handling dynamic flows, hard-to-locate UI elements, and testing across multiple platforms and languages. Our main objective is to reduce test maintenance effort.
We offer:
a Web Studio – A no-setup-required platform with all tooling preconfigured.
SDKs – Directly integrate with existing test suites (Appium, XCUI, Espresso).
Co-author of Maestro here - really appreciate that support jztan! If you get a chance you should also try out web support which we recently released! And always open to feedback, so please let me know if there's anything you think can be improved!
Hi everyone, co-founder of Mobile.dev and co-author of Maestro here . Thanks jstan for sharing Maestro and for the kind words—really glad to hear it’s working well for you!
We built Maestro because E2E testing felt unnecessarily complicated, and we wanted something simple and powerful that anyone could use — whether you’re a seasoned developer or just getting started with automation. It’s been amazing to see it adopted at companies like Meta, Block, DoorDash, Stripe, and Disney, but honestly, what excites us most is seeing teams who’ve never done test automation before finally get a solid strategy in place because Maestro is so easy to use and get started with.
Oh, and if you’re wondering — yes, it works for web testing too!
We’re constantly iterating and adding features, so if you’ve got ideas, run into issues, or just want to chat, let me know. Always happy to hear how we can make it better.
Thanks again for checking it out, and happy testing!
Please add the ability to drive an actual iOS device instead of simulators.
In the works - stay tuned!
We used to use Maestro but then they unfortunately decided to go all in on AI and hiked the price to match, making it no longer worthwhile for us.
Hey tibbe - co-founder of Mobile.dev here. First off, totally get where you're coming from. We do offer a startup discount, but would love to dig in more to see if there's something we can work out. My co-founder and I would love to chat if you're open to it! Just shoot me a note if interested! leland@mobile.dev
Is the open-source version not usable/allowed for CI/CD environment?
Yep free and open-source to use. Plenty of folks run Maestro on directly on GitHub Actions, Bitrise, etc. Teams often run on our hosted cloud infra for parallelism and reliability when scaling up their testing, but that's totally up to you!
Trying this out at work and so far it has been leagues better than other mobile automation tools. I have just gotten started but it has been encouraging.
Awesome to hear! Feel free to tag me (@Leland) in our Slack community if you run into any issues! Slack invite: https://docsend.com/view/3r2sf8fvvcjxvbtk
Maestro is great. However it lacks so many important features you might need
For example, Maestro does not let you to coordinate multiple flow tests together. One test case I had is one phone initiating a call, and another answers it. Instead, Maestro prefers that every flow is self contained and will not run both in parallel reliably
I found many such limitations in its design only after writing a whole lot of their custom flow syntax
How does it compare to writing Appium tests?
There was a good thread on reddit a while back on this topic. Post was simply a request for opinions on Appium, but virtually everyone ended up recommending Maestro instead: https://www.reddit.com/r/QualityAssurance/comments/1771ca7/o...
Honestly, I'd just give it a try yourself - you can get started in minutes
Appium and Selenium project creator here. Just saying hi.
worth mentioning it also supports web testing (in beta), so it's not exclusively for mobile testing!
https://docs.maestro.dev/platform-support/web-desktop-browse...
(disclosure: I currently work for mobile.dev, so if you have any feedback or questions, feel free to drop a reply and I'll try to answer)
First of all, I didn't make this, let me be clear, and I don't work for the company Mobile.dev.
I've been looking for a replacement for Appium because the documentation for that site is absolutely garbage. Maestro boils everything down to YAML and runs its own test server so that you don't have to worry about connecting to the device drivers. It's missing an API but who needs an API when the CLI is so beautiful.
Does anyone know of anything on par with this that I should try? So far this has knocked my socks off.
Hi Jztan, glad you're exploring this space! I'm the co-founder of MobileBoost, and I'd love to introduce our product, GPT Driver (https://www.mobileboost.io/).
We started two years ago with an AI-native approach, which is particularly useful for handling dynamic flows, hard-to-locate UI elements, and testing across multiple platforms and languages. Our main objective is to reduce test maintenance effort.
Duolingo recently shared their experience adopting our tooling: https://blog.duolingo.com/reduced-regression-testing/
We offer: a Web Studio – A no-setup-required platform with all tooling preconfigured. SDKs – Directly integrate with existing test suites (Appium, XCUI, Espresso).
Happy to answer any questions!
Co-author of Maestro here - really appreciate that support jztan! If you get a chance you should also try out web support which we recently released! And always open to feedback, so please let me know if there's anything you think can be improved!
What was the most garbage thing in your opinion re: Appium documentation?
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Let us know how it goes! We've got a very active slack community if you run into any issues. Slack invite: https://docsend.com/view/3r2sf8fvvcjxvbtk