Start free. Add tools and enterprise capabilities as you grow.
Featured in the Gartner® Market Guide · API & MCP Testing Tools$0
forever
Open source + Xplorer
$640$64
per user / yearper user / month
IDE plugins + Xplorer Premium
Everything in Free, plus:
* Dev-time license. Runtime license requires Enterprise.
Custom
volume & floating licenses
For teams at scale
Everything in Pro, plus:
Pricing is per user. Floating licenses and volume discounts available on request.
Bolt-on enterprise products. Priority support, offline licensing, and dedicated onboarding included.
Kafka, gRPC, and WebSocket. Runtime license for CI/CD.
Autonomous AI browser testing.
Managed platform, self-hosted.
Not sure which add-ons fit your stack?
Tailored deployment plan, security review, and pilot pricing.
Total Cost of Ownership
Most teams maintain 4–5 separate tools. Karate consolidates them into one.
| Capability | Traditional Stack | Karate |
|---|---|---|
| API Testing | REST-assured + Hamcrest + TestNG | Built-in |
| UI Automation | Selenium + WebDriver + Grid + POM | Built-in |
| API Mocking | Wiremock (separate setup) | Built-in |
| Performance Testing | Gatling or JMeter (separate scripts) | Built-in (reuse API tests) |
| Parallel Execution | Custom threading / Selenium Grid | Built-in |
| Reporting | Allure / ExtentReports (plugins) | Built-in HTML + JUnit XML |
| CI/CD Integration | Custom config per tool | Standard JUnit — works everywhere |
| Desktop API Client | Postman ($14–49/user/mo for teams) | Xplorer Free · Premium $200/yr |
| Tools to maintain | 4–5 separate tools | 1 framework |
| Lines of test code | ~4,000 lines | ~1,500 lines (60% less) |
| New hire onboarding | Weeks (Java + frameworks + POM) | Days (plain-English DSL) |
| Open source core cost | $0 (but 4–5 tools to learn) | $0 (one tool to learn) |
Based on real customer data from enterprise deployments at GFT, Cytel, and Oracle.
Compare All Features
| Feature | Framework Free |
Xplorer Free / $200 |
IDE Plus $100/yr |
IDE Pro $640/yr |
Enterprise Custom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core framework (API/UI/Perf) | |||||
| Syntax highlighting & run from IDE | — | — | |||
| Debug & step-through (Karate + Java) | — | — | — | ||
| Auto-complete & jump to references | — | — | — | ||
| Xplorer desktop client | — | — | Premium incl. | Premium incl. | |
| OpenAPI / Swagger import & spec-to-test | — | Premium | — | — | |
| Async API Testing (Kafka/gRPC/WebSocket) | — | — | — | Dev-time | Full + Runtime |
| Karate Agent (AI-native) | — | — | — | — | Add-on |
| SSO / SAML / OIDC | — | — | — | — | |
| License management portal | — | — | — | — | |
| Priority support & SLA | — | — | — | — | |
| Offline license & dedicated Slack | — | — | — | — |
FAQ
Yes. Karate is fully open source under the MIT license. You can use it in commercial projects, modify it, and redistribute it without any fees or account. The paid tiers are for IDE productivity features and enterprise add-ons.
For the open-source framework, no — run it anywhere, including CI/CD. For enterprise add-ons like Async API Testing (Kafka, gRPC, WebSocket), you'll need an Enterprise runtime license for production CI/CD execution.
A dev-time license (IDE Pro tier) lets individual developers write and run async tests locally. A runtime license (Enterprise tier) is required to execute async tests in CI/CD pipelines. Runtime licenses are priced per environment, not per user.
Yes. Floating (concurrent) licenses are available for teams that don't need seats for every individual developer. Contact sales for floating license pricing and terms.
Yes. You can upgrade at any time — we'll prorate the difference for the remainder of your current term. Downgrades take effect at the next renewal.
Enterprise pricing is custom based on team size, deployment model (cloud / self-hosted / air-gapped), which add-ons you need (Async, Agent, Platform), and your support requirements. Typical enterprise deals include volume-discounted IDE seats plus runtime licenses.
We offer enterprise trials only when the scope and expected outcome are clearly defined. This isn't gatekeeping for its own sake — it's how we ensure every trial has the engineering support, success criteria, and timeline it needs to actually prove value for your team.
Before approving a trial, our team will typically ask:
Serious teams with clear goals are always welcome. Start by booking a demo and we'll take it from there.
Pro tier includes the ability to run async (Kafka/gRPC/WebSocket) tests locally during development. Production CI/CD execution of async tests requires the Enterprise runtime license. This split ensures individual developers can iterate freely while enterprise usage is properly licensed.
Tell us about your team, stack, and goals — we'll recommend the right mix of tiers and add-ons for your use case.