Thunders: The Best Mabl Alternative for AI Testing

Side by side.

Comparing Thunders vs Mabl

Test Creation & Authoring

No-code test creation in natural language

Limited (Trainer-first, GenAI assists)

AI-powered test generation from specs or user stories

Limited

Tests authored without a desktop app

(Trainer required)

Browser support for authoring

Chrome only

All major browsers

JavaScript snippets needed for advanced logic

Often

Rarely

Test creation by non-technical users (PMs, QA, Business)

Limited

Reusable flows and shared components

Execution & Maintenance

Self-healing on UI changes

Auto-healing (selector-level)

Intent-level self-healing

Parallel cross-browser execution

AI-driven root cause analysis on failures

Built-in personas for edge case coverage (SEO, accessibility, security)

Trainer can record canvas, file uploads, basic auth popups

Limited

Pricing & Platform

Pricing model

Credit-based (per cloud run)

Predictable subscription

Transparent pricing

(custom enterprise)

Free tier or free trial

Trial only

Native CI/CD integration (GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins)

Issue tracking sync (Jira, Linear, Xray)

Self-hosting / on-prem option

(SaaS only)

Coming soon

Enterprise security (SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR)

Test Creation

Mabl is built around the Trainer, a Chrome-based desktop app you install, open, and click through your application to record steps. It is genuinely faster than writing Selenium from scratch, and the recorded steps are readable. But the model is still "click to capture," which means anyone authoring tests has to actually walk through the flow, in Chrome, on a machine with the desktop app installed. GenAI features have been added on top, but the recorder remains the primary interface.

Thunders replaces the recorder with intent. Describe what you want to test in plain language and AI agents translate that into executable steps, kno desktop app, no Chrome dependency, no walking through the flow first. QA writes tests from a spec. Business teams verify a checkout path without ever opening a browser. The recorder is not modernized. It is gone.

Test Maintenance

Mabl's auto-healing is one of its strongest features. It looks at multiple attributes per element and updates selectors when the UI shifts. For minor changes: a button class renamed, an ID updated, it works well. The limit is structural: when the flow itself changes, when a step is reordered, when logic moves between pages, auto-healing does not know what the test was trying to verify. The fix lands back on your team.

Thunders heals at the intent level, not the selector level. The platform understands what each test is verifying, not which DOM node it interacted with last week. When your UI evolves, even when flows reorganize, tests adapt. Maintenance does not scale linearly with suite size.

Coverage & Intelligence

Mabl covers what your team records. Visual regression, API testing, performance, and accessibility are all on the platform, but each test is still authored from a single user's path through the app. There is no built-in concept of running the same flow through multiple personas (accessibility, SEO, security) without building each suite manually.

Thunders ships with AI Personas: SEO reviewers, accessibility testers, security auditors, and custom personas you define. The same flow runs through multiple lenses automatically. You catch the edge cases your team would not have thought to script, before they ship.

Pricing & Platform Scope

Mabl prices on credits. Cloud test runs consume credits from a monthly pool, and at scale, teams running tests on every commit can blow through credits faster than the budget allows. Local and CI runs are unlimited, which softens the model for developer-led teams, but the pricing is opaque and enterprise-priced, solo testers and small teams typically cannot justify it.

Thunders is priced on predictable subscriptions, not per-run credits. Your test budget does not get rationed across CI builds. There is a free trial period to start and transparent pricing for paid plans.

Get a Demo

Here are a few reasons why now might be the time to switch from Mabl to Thunders

Interface

No desktop app, no Chrome lock-in

Mabl's Trainer is a Chrome-based desktop app. It works well on the machines it is installed on, in the browser it supports, when nothing about the page is unusual (canvas elements, file uploads, basic auth popups all have known limitations). Thunders runs entirely in your browser, on any OS, and does not require capturing flows by walking through them.

No-code, natural language interface

Browser-based, no desktop install

AI-powered test generation from user stories or tickets

Role-based access for QA, dev, product, and business profiles

Coverage

Personas your team did not have time to script

Mabl covers visual, API, performance, and accessibility, but each test is authored from a single user's path. Thunders runs the same flow through multiple AI Personas automatically: SEO reviewer, accessibility tester, security auditor, plus custom personas you define. Coverage expands without your team writing more tests.

Built-in accessibility, SEO, and security personas (alpha)

Custom personas for your business context

One flow, multiple lenses, automatic coverage

Pricing

Predictable subscriptions, not credit anxiety

Mabl's credit-based model is fine until your team starts running tests on every commit. Then the budget conversation becomes part of the engineering conversation. Thunders prices on predictable subscriptions with a free trial to start. Run tests as often as you want, in CI as well as locally. Self-hosting is available for teams that need it.

Transparent, subscription-based pricing

14 days free trial available

Native CI/CD integrations (GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins)

Demo video

Thunders in action

Wondering if Thunders is a better platform for you? See this video walkthrough to learn the ins and outs of Thunders’ application and how it can help your team.

They tested our product

What our customers actually say

Middle-aged bald man with glasses speaking and gesturing with hands in an indoor setting with blurred background screens.

This is our QA of the future.

From the very first tests, Thunders caught real bugs in our interface — bugs that had slipped through all our standard quality processes.

Before Thunders, all UI testing was done manually. With Thunders, everything is end-to-end automated. Thunders lets us generate tests very quickly and improve the overall quality of our product.

Wassim Jouini

CTO @LegalPlace

Portrait of a woman with long hair wearing a light-colored turtleneck sweater in an indoor setting.

Thunders is a whole new testing culture, not just another tool.

Automating our tests was a real challenge that classical automation simply couldn't solve. With Thunders, we were able to automate a hundred tests, with no technical expertise required.

Thunders opens up test automation to non-technical roles. Thunders bridges the gap between code and people. With Selenium, it used to take much longer.

Hanen Khalfaoui

QA Manager @Infopro Digital

Older man with white hair, beard, and glasses wearing a blazer and shirt, speaking with a microphone attached in an indoor setting.

What won me over with Thunders was the testing approach, the maturity, and the innovation.

Thunders delivers far greater resilience compared to classical automation. Thunders introduced a new variable in how we respond to RFPs — and it changes our entire economic model.

Today, Thunders is giving us a glimpse of more resilient tests and better maintainability of test suites. We run proofs of concept with Thunders to validate technologies for our clients.

Jean-Olivier Penin

Co-founder @B/Acceptance

Man with short hair and beard wearing a black Agorapulse sweatshirt speaking in an indoor office setting.

Thunders enabled us to put quality and test creation in the hands of the entire product team.

Our PM teams covered 80% of our test scope in just six weeks with Thunders. After just one month, the entire team was up and running.

Tests are executable immediately and the onboarding was genuinely straightforward. Now it's the PMs who write test plans in plain language directly in Thunders.

Florian Ernoult

VP Engineering @agorapulse

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