Comparative Analysis

Languages Environment Supported

WhiteBox™ 3.0 supports C, C++ and Java.

Cantata supports C and C++.

System Requirement/ Platform

White Box™ 3.0: Windows NT/95/98

Cantata: Unix System/ Windows 3.1/ Windows NT/ 95/ OS/2, VAX/VMS/ MS DOS or many other cross compilation environments

Types of testing supported

WhiteBox™ 3.0

WhiteBox™ 3.0 enables software developers to perform quick and easy unit testing to ensure that code is well-tested and correct prior to checking it into the source control system. Software assurance professionals can assure where the test suites may be deficient and where system level test optimization can occur. Organization can use WhiteBox™ 3.0 can measure where software testing is sufficient and where more testing resources should be applied. This allows a development and testing organization to focus testing resources on the most critical part of an application and verify the test effectiveness where it's most important.

WhiteBox also optimizes black box (functional) testing by applying code coverage to validate the effectiveness of those tests. The project team is able to know which tests effectively cover the code and identifies additional tests required to obtain coverage goals in minimal time.

As it name implies, White Box also uses white box testing(structural).

Cantata

Cantata uses both black box(functional) and white box(white box). Cantata provides comprehensive facilities for all forms of unit and integration testing. The tool has been specifically designed to operate in both host and target systems and so allow full portability of tests between environments

Cantata also applies positive testing, a test to check for expected behavior and also uses negative testing to test for anything unexpected such as corrupting memory. Regression testing is also included. This is to enable tests to be reused for testing subsequent revisions of the program.

Metrics

WhiteBox 3.0 and Cantata both uses metrics in their testing to increase the quality of the result from the test. WhiteBox 3.0 provides structural and static metrics. Cantata provides over 100 metrics. The metrics included are McCabe Metrics, Halstead Metrics, Hansen Metrics and Language Metrics.

Cost

WhiteBox™ 3.0

• $995/user - single language support (Java or C/C++) Build License (includes build and test machine license, including results browser (Rbrowse) for one user
• $1495/user - combined language support (Java and C/C++)
• $ 100/user - Additional Test Machine Licenses (enables WhiteBox testing on multiple test machines)
• $ 495/user - additional language support

Cantata's cost not listed.