Discussions

While end to end testing is essential for validating entire workflows, scaling it across large applications often becomes tricky. Some of the common challenges teams encounter include:

Test environment stability: E2E tests need production-like environments. If services or data aren’t consistent, results can be unreliable.

Flaky tests: Small delays in APIs or UI rendering often lead to false negatives, which erodes trust in the test suite.

Execution time: Full workflow tests take longer to run compared to unit or integration tests, slowing down CI/CD pipelines.

Maintenance overhead: As applications evolve, keeping end to end test cases updated requires significant effort.

Data handling: Managing test data across multiple systems and ensuring it resets cleanly is another ongoing struggle.

Many teams solve this by keeping end to end testing lean — focused on critical paths — while relying on unit and integration tests for broader coverage. Tooling and automation frameworks can also reduce the burden by generating or maintaining tests more efficiently.