How to Set Up Environment To Test Websites Locally

As with any project in an organization, changes to a website should be approached with contingencies in mind. A backup plan provides ample time and space to address unprecedented deficiencies that can be catastrophic when they occur on a live website or server. For this reason, websites are often subject to the local test environment. In this article we will see how we can set up an environment for testing websites locally.

Local testing for staging applications

You can always opt for it decide to write automation test scripts in different test frameworks to test your websites locally, be it a local host server or a staging website. There are some tools like BrowserStack Automate and BrowserStack Live that you can use to test your websites locally. These tools help run interactive and automated tests on local host or staging environments.

Reading: How to create a website test environment

What is a local test environment?

Whenever a change When a website needs to go live, ideally the whole process goes through a foolproof method where the changes are made on a prototype or beta version of the website, running various test cases and identifying the changes that need to be fixed before the final release .

Any environment that acts as a barrier between the live website or server is called a local test environment. This is the environment where changes are first made and tested.

Some of the advantages of using a local test environment are as follows:

• You can experiment and improvise – When you make changes to the local test environment, the changes are reflected in a prototype, which also gives enough room to improvise about different possibilities. Instead of making changes to the live site, one can experiment with the prototype and finalize the best options available.
• No harm to the live site – None of the changes are made to the staging site or prototype. This allows you to be a little less cautious when things go wrong and focus on the requirements at hand.
• An emergency for the live site– If at all a live site encounters problems, the prototype or staging site is always ready with the latest changes to the site or a complete design that can be easily replicated to get the job done with ease.
• Efficient Test Case Execution – A local website testing environment ensures a properly structured test set that can be carried out efficiently, for example – accessibility tests for various functions – which often go unnoticed and can pose a problem for compliance.

Now that we know what a local test environment is, let’s take a look at all the things to consider before proceeding with setting up the local test environment.

Running your first build in a local test environment

Let’s take an example of a simple web application that lists some features as simple as a to- the app on. The interface includes the login page and takes you to the home page when authenticated.

We will create our first build using the Django framework, which will run a test case in the Chrome web browser that automates the login authentication and tests whether the “admin” is present on the source side or not. We would also need to install the compatible Chrome driver and Selenium to run the following Python script.

Once we press the following command in Terminal, we can see that Terminal identifies the test script with the one mentioned test cases.

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The result shows that the test ran successfully and without errors.

Now that we know how we can set up a local test environment to test the websites locally, share with us some of the prerequisites that must be followed to create efficient local test environments.

What to expect when setting up the local environment?

1. Interaction – One must ensure that the local environment can interact with the APIs, local databases and other integrated systems the website might require.
2. Test Management Tool – One must have a test management tool consisting of a test matrix that can map the requirements with the overall test strategy and plans.
3. Testing Requirements – The team needs to narrow down the frameworks, testing tools, programming languages, and team efficiencies that go into the test management strategy.
4. Resource Management – Based on the efficiency of the QA teams, you should be able to narrow down the different types of tests and reports that are generated. The objective of the test environment and how the insights/solutions will be deployed to the deployment server should be clear in the resource management plan.
5. Budget Management – After the overall test strategy or project management plan has been created, the required resources (budget) must be allocated to the tools and frameworks that are most needed throughout the cycle.

These are some pointers that may make your work a little easier when setting up a local test environment. However, different projects may have unique challenges and therefore be treated in a unique way. Since we’ve discussed what we should expect when creating a local test environment, let’s also understand how to set one up as well.

How to set up an environment for local testing of a website

Let’s take a look at how to set up BrowserStack Automate and BrowserStack Live to to get started Here we use Python to set up a local test environment with BrowserStack Automate, you can choose the scripting language according to your project.

You can follow the steps below to start automated testing with BrowserStack Automate:

1. Set up the dependencies: You can set up the dependencies by installing Selenium and programming language bindings, e.g. python programming etc.

• Sudo easy_install pip

• Sudo pip installs selenium

2. Configure your first build: After configuring the browser and device combinations, you can copy the first build from the BrowserStack Automate page and the first build on your local one run computer. A first build can be defined as a small piece of software/requirements/declared to be tested, and once the first build runs successfully, the entire build can be assumed to be testable and the QA teams can proceed with testing further.

Note: You may also need to install some dependencies like “dotenv” to run the script.

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3. You can just run the build on BrowserStack and view the results on the Automate dashboard. To run the build you can follow these steps:

• Once you have copied the sample build from the BrowserStack Automat and selected the OS versions and browser settings. You can save your file with the name “xyz” and the extension “.py”. If you are using an IDE, you can just run the following command in the terminal.
• Open the terminal and run the python file you just created with “Python filename.py”. It redirects you to the dashboard where we complete the two objectives. One is to run the first build and the other goal is to analyze the results in the dashboard as shown in the image below.
• This is just an example build that we ran on the platform to get familiar with the test environment. You can use the BrowserStack Automate to test your local websites and analyze the test results in the dashboard for clarity and evaluation of future builds.

Browserstack Live, on the other hand, is another tool that can provide interactive manual testing and debugging support for websites on localhost or staging. You can follow these steps to get started with BrowserStack Live:

• Download the local BrowserStack app to your computer to enable local testing.

The local testing feature of the Local Browserstack app allows you to choose from different operating systems, including Windows, Mac, etc., and devices that support multiple browsers, such as Chrome, Opera, and Firefox.

• Launch local tests on the BrowserStack Live Dashboard.The BrowserStack live dashboard lets you choose from a range of devices and operating systems to set up the environment for testing your websites locally.

The benefits of a local testing environment can save millions for companies making changes at scale. The cost-effectiveness of changes that may be required on the live websites can be efficiently achieved through automation testing tools that can help you navigate the changes across different devices, operating systems, etc. Therefore, it is always a hard rule to set up a local test environment for each project (website) to save valuable time and resources.

BrowserStack allows you to test your applications that reside on a local server. You can test your apps on over 3000 devices.

Try it now

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