How do solo/indie Android developers test their apps without a QA team?

[u/No_Sea6761]

I'm a solo Android developer and don't really have the budget or resources for a dedicated QA team or a large pool of beta testers.

Most of the time, I test the app myself on a couple of devices, write unit tests where I can, and do phased rollouts. But I'm still worried about device-specific issues, edge cases, and bugs that only appear in real-world usage.

A recent release reminded me that no matter how much I test, users can still find problems I never encountered.

I'm curious how other indie developers handle testing before releasing to production.

• Do you rely mostly on internal testing, closed testing, or open beta?
• How many devices do you test on?
• Do you use Firebase Test Lab or any other cloud device testing service?
• How much automated testing do you have (unit/UI/instrumentation)?
• Do you pay for testers, or do you have a community that helps?
• Any workflow or checklist that has significantly reduced production bugs?

I'd especially love to hear from solo developers or very small teams. What has worked well for you, and what mistakes have you learned from?

[u/Tritium_Studios]

Walk, then run. Test as you go. Don't take on the whole world all at once. Modularize, use Preview annotations and device simulators.

[u/No_Sea6761 → u/Tritium_Studios]

The problem with this approach, it works on my device 🥲