A Survey on Web Application Testing: A Decade of Evolution

TL;DR

This survey consolidates a decade of Web Application Testing research by analyzing 314 studies from 2014 to 2023 across six research questions. It catalogues test case generation and execution techniques, evaluation metrics, and available tools, highlighting model-based and data-driven approaches and their security and performance emphases. Key contributions include a taxonomy of AUTs and datasets, a breakdown of generation methods with MBT as a leading paradigm, and a synthesis of challenges such as tool fragmentation and the need for standardized metrics. The findings underscore the practical impact of scalable, automated WAT frameworks and point to future directions involving LLMs, metamorphic testing, and multi-agent reinforcement learning to enhance coverage, efficiency, and resilience of web applications.

Abstract

As one of the most popular software applications, a web application is a program, accessible through the web, to dynamically generate content based on user interactions or contextual data, for example, online shopping platforms, social networking sites, and financial services. Web applications operate in diverse environments and leverage web technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Ajax, often incorporating features like asynchronous operations to enhance user experience. Due to the increasing user and popularity of web applications, approaches to their quality have become increasingly important. Web Application Testing (WAT) plays a vital role in ensuring web applications' functionality, security, and reliability. Given the speed with which web technologies are evolving, WAT is especially important. Over the last decade, various WAT approaches have been developed. The diversity of approaches reflects the many aspects of web applications, such as dynamic content, asynchronous operations, and diverse user environments. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the main achievements during the past decade: It examines the main steps involved in WAT, including test-case generation and execution, and evaluation and assessment. The currently available tools for WAT are also examined. The paper also discusses some open research challenges and potential future WAT work.

Figures (10)

• Figure 1: Structure of this survey paper.
• Figure 2: WAT papers published between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2023.
• Figure 3: Venue distribution of surveyed papers.
• Figure 4: Proportions of test objectives in surveyed papers.
• Figure 5: Proportions of generation methods in surveyed papers.