XCUITest vs Firebase Test Lab

Free

From $1 per device hour (physical devices, indicative)

Free with Xcode, but requires macOS hardware for every CI runner — that is the real cost.

Pay-as-you-go per device hour on the Blaze plan; virtual devices are cheaper than physical.

Included with Xcode.

Free daily quota of virtual and physical device minutes on the Spark plan.

Category standard

Apple · since 2015

Widely used

Google · since 2016

• Fastest and most reliable option on iOS, with no third-party layer to break.
• Native accessibility-hierarchy access and built-in test recording.
• Guaranteed to keep working with each iOS release.

• Very cheap per device hour compared with commercial device clouds.
• Robo Test finds crashes with zero test-writing effort.
• Tight integration with Android tooling and Firebase Crashlytics.

• iOS and macOS only, and Swift only.
• Requires macOS CI runners, which are expensive to rent or own.
• Element queries are less expressive than modern web locators.

• Device selection is far narrower than a dedicated device cloud.
• iOS support is meaningfully thinner than Android.
• No interactive manual testing session.

iOS teams that ship native and want first-party reliability.

Android-first teams that want real-device coverage at the lowest cost.