--- title: On the low adoption of automated testing in FOSS | daily.dev description: A Collabora engineer examines why automated testing remains underadopted in Free and Open Source Software projects. Key reasons identified include: no formal... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/on-the-low-adoption-of-automated-testing-in-foss-wcsqkphpe twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: On the low adoption of automated testing in FOSS | daily.dev og:description: A Collabora engineer examines why automated testing remains underadopted in Free and Open Source Software projects. Key reasons identified include: no formal... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/on-the-low-adoption-of-automated-testing-in-foss-wcsqkphpe og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/wCsQkpHpE.png og:image:alt: On the low adoption of automated testing in FOSS og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # On the low adoption of automated testing in FOSS **[Collabora Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/collabora)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A Collabora engineer examines why automated testing remains underadopted in Free and Open Source Software projects. Key reasons identified include: no formal warranty obligations reducing bug-fix urgency, over-reliance on code reviews as a quality substitute, a negative network effect from high-profile projects not modeling good testing practices, tests being treated as an afterthought as projects grow, historically limited access to free CI infrastructure, and a cultural perception that testing is too 'enterprise-y' for hacker culture. The author argues each of these reasons is misguided — bugs are cheap for developers but costly for users, code reviews have inherent human limitations, and technical excellence (a core hacker value) is better served by automated tests than without them. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why do so many open source projects not have automated test suites? Several compounding factors discourage automated testing in FOSS: no formal warranty obligations make bugs feel cheap for developers (though not for users), over-reliance on code reviews whose human limitations can't catch all bugs, a negative network effect where high-profile projects not testing discourages newcomers, tests being added too late when code has become test-unfriendly, historically costly CI infrastructure, and a cultural bias viewing testing as too 'enterprise-y'. _Open source maintainers debating whether to add a test suite find the full breakdown of these trade-offs on daily.dev._ ### Are code reviews a sufficient substitute for automated testing in a software project? Code reviews are not a sufficient substitute for automated testing. Reviewers are human and prone to overlooking issues, especially at a system-wide level. Most contributions to large FOSS projects are reviewed by only a couple of people on average. Code reviews help with design and architecture alignment but only catch some bugs some of the time, making automated tests a necessary complement. _Teams weighing code review processes against test automation find ongoing discussion on the trade-offs at daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Unit tests mark territory more than squash bugs](https://daily.dev/posts/unit-tests-mark-territory-more-than-squash-bugs-tjmwlmfzx) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 1 comments - [Software quality is more than a testing problem](https://daily.dev/posts/software-quality-is-more-than-a-testing-problem-yobnrjmos) · Effective Software Leads · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Automated regression testing: A complete introduction](https://daily.dev/posts/automated-regression-testing-a-complete-introduction-ylcecni2u) · Testim.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [2016: Developers are too expensive to…](https://daily.dev/posts/2016-developers-are-too-expensive-to--ltiivljet) · Justin Searls · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [To test, or not to Test? Part 1 – Why Test? And at what cost?](https://daily.dev/posts/to-test-or-not-to-test-part-1-why-test-and-at-what-cost--rpi5gqq7u) · We Are .NET · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#testing](https://daily.dev/tags/testing), [#cicd](https://daily.dev/tags/cicd), [#code-review](https://daily.dev/tags/code-review) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/on-the-low-adoption-of-automated-testing-in-foss-wcsqkphpe) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"On the low adoption of automated testing in FOSS","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/on-the-low-adoption-of-automated-testing-in-foss-wcsqkphpe","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/on-the-low-adoption-of-automated-testing-in-foss-wcsqkphpe"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:53:46.527Z","dateModified":"2026-08-11T09:14:22.544Z","description":"A Collabora engineer examines why automated testing remains underadopted in Free and Open Source Software projects. 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