Tesbo vs Kiwi TCMS
Kiwi TCMS is the most actively maintained open-source test management system, and the one competitor blogs and "open source TCM" search results point to first. Its GPL-2.0, self-hosted Community edition is genuinely free — the comparison is about what you do once you outgrow typing every case by hand.
Claims last checked against Kiwi TCMS’s own pages on Sep 1, 2026
The short answer
Both Kiwi TCMS and Tesbo Community are free, self-hosted and open source — not a price fight at the entry tier. Kiwi TCMS has a nine-year track record and official CI reporters for Playwright, Cypress and pytest, with no AI features. Tesbo drafts cases with an agent a person reviews, priced per workspace not per user. Pick Kiwi TCMS for zero external calls; pick Tesbo to stop typing cases by hand.
At a glance
- Both are open source. Kiwi TCMS is GPL-2.0; Tesbo is Apache-2.0, and Tesbo Community is free forever, self-hosted, with no seat limit.
- Kiwi TCMS has 1,242 GitHub stars and commits going back to 2017. It ships official reporters for Playwright, Cypress and pytest.
- Kiwi TCMS's hosted tiers start at $75/mo (Self Support) and run to $753/yr or $2,260 for 3 years (Private Tenant), $600/mo (Enterprise) and $2,000/mo per instance (Managed Hosting).
- Tesbo Cloud Pro is $30/mo billed annually ($360/yr) per workspace, whatever your headcount — Kiwi TCMS bills per subscription tier, not per seat, but neither ties price to team size the way per-user tools do.
- Kiwi TCMS has no shipped AI feature. Tesbo drafts preconditions, steps and expected results from a one-line description, and nothing enters the suite without a human approving it.
- Kiwi TCMS makes no outbound calls by design. Tesbo calls whichever AI provider you bring your own key for — a real difference for a team that requires zero external calls.
Where Tesbo is different
The cases get drafted for you
Kiwi TCMS is a well-built filing cabinet: you still write every precondition, step and expected result by hand. Tesbo drafts them from a one-line description of the behaviour, in your suite's own structure, and asks a person to review before anything is saved.
Pricing does not track your Jira-style user count
Kiwi TCMS's Private Tenant and Enterprise tiers are priced as flat subscriptions rather than per seat, which is already better than most of the category. Tesbo goes one step further: one workspace price covers everyone in it, so the tenth reviewer costs the same as the first.
The free tier is the same product, not a crippled one
Kiwi TCMS's Community edition genuinely has no feature gate, which is rare and worth crediting. Tesbo Community matches that: unlimited projects, unlimited members, unlimited test cases, one core agent, self-hosted, free forever.
A newer interface for people outside QA
Kiwi TCMS's UI is functional but dated, and it shows when you ask a developer or product manager to read results in it rather than just QA specialists. Tesbo was built this decade with that wider audience in mind.
Side by side
| Capability | Tesbo | Kiwi TCMS |
|---|---|---|
| LicenceBoth are genuinely open source, not source-available. | Apache-2.0, self-hostable | GPL-2.0, self-hostable |
| Free option | Community edition, self-hosted, free forever, unlimited members | Community edition, self-hosted, free, unlimited — ad-supported UI, no warranty, rolling release |
| Hosted pricingKiwi TCMS figures from its own partner store price list, checked 1 September 2026. | $30/mo per workspace billed annually ($360/yr), any headcount | Self Support $75/mo; Private Tenant $753/yr (1yr) or $2,260 (3yr); Enterprise $600/mo; Managed Hosting $2,000/mo per instance |
| AI test case drafting | Yes, with a required human review before anything saves | None shipped by the official project |
| Makes external callsIf zero outbound network calls is a hard requirement, Kiwi TCMS wins this row outright. | Only to the AI provider whose key you supply | No — self-contained by design |
| CI / automation integrationsKiwi TCMS is ahead here for teams standardised on those three frameworks specifically. | API-based result ingestion; Jira and Linear on paid plans | Official reporters for Playwright, Cypress and pytest, plus Bugzilla/Jira bug-tracker integration |
| Track record | New | Active since 2017, 1,242 GitHub stars, commits from a maintained core team |
| Commercial support | Available on Tesbo Cloud | Paid subscriptions from Self Support up to Enterprise; community forums otherwise |
What it costs
Kiwi TCMS Community is free to self-host under GPL-2.0, same promise Tesbo Community makes under Apache-2.0. Past that, Kiwi TCMS sells hosting and support as flat subscriptions: Self Support (SaaS hosting, DIY-ish) from $75/mo, Private Tenant at $753 for one year or $2,260 for three, Enterprise at $600/mo for on-premises inside your VPN, and Managed Hosting at $2,000/mo per instance for a fully managed deployment. Tesbo Cloud Pro is a single $30/mo ($360/yr) per-workspace price regardless of headcount. Figures are from Kiwi TCMS's own pricing and partner-store pages, checked 1 September 2026.
What it costs at your team size
Both projects are free to self-host at any size. This compares the cheapest hosted tier each vendor sells, since that is the plan most teams that do not want to run their own server actually buy.
| Team size | Tesbo | Kiwi TCMS |
|---|---|---|
| 5 people | $360/yr hosted, or $0 self-hosted | $753/yr (Private Tenant), or $0 self-hosted |
| 20 people | $360/yr hosted, or $0 self-hosted | $753/yr (Private Tenant), or $0 self-hosted |
| 50 people | $360/yr hosted, or $0 self-hosted | $753/yr (Private Tenant), or $0 self-hosted |
Neither vendor prices its hosted tiers per seat, so headcount does not move either column — the honest comparison is workspace-vs-instance, not per-person. Kiwi TCMS's Private Tenant plan bundles more support hours than Tesbo Cloud Pro; if support responsiveness matters more than price, weigh that against the $393/yr difference.
Bringing your data across
Kiwi TCMS exposes a full JSON-RPC and XML-RPC API and stores data in Postgres, so nothing is locked away. Tesbo imports CSV, so the usual route is scripting an export through Kiwi TCMS's API and reshaping it into Tesbo's CSV format.
- 1Pull one test plan out through the Kiwi TCMS API to see the field shapes you are working with.
- 2Map TestCase, TestPlan and TestRun fields to Tesbo's CSV columns; a short script handles this for most teams.
- 3Import into a scratch Tesbo project and check that steps, expected results and custom fields landed correctly.
- 4Move project by project, and keep the Kiwi TCMS instance readable until a full release cycle has run in Tesbo.
Which one should you pick?
Pick Tesbo if
The hours spent writing and rewriting test cases by hand are the real cost you are trying to cut, you want a workspace price that does not move with headcount, or you want a modern interface non-QA stakeholders will actually open.
Pick Kiwi TCMS if
Your team is already standardised on Playwright, Cypress or pytest and wants official reporters with nine years behind them, you have a hard requirement that the tool make zero outbound network calls, or you already run a healthy Kiwi TCMS instance — in which case there is no emergency here.
Kiwi TCMS vs Tesbo: common questions
Can I import my test cases from Kiwi TCMS?
Yes. Kiwi TCMS's JSON-RPC and XML-RPC APIs expose test plans, cases and runs directly. Pull them out, reshape into Tesbo's CSV import format, and bring history across project by project.
Is Kiwi TCMS still maintained?
Yes, actively. It has been developed continuously since 2017, has 1,242 GitHub stars, and receives regular commits from a maintained core team. It is not abandoned — it simply has no shipped AI feature and no per-workspace pricing model.
If both are free, why switch?
Not for price at the entry tier — both Community editions are genuinely free. The reason is what happens above that: Tesbo drafts test cases instead of making you type every one, and its hosted tier is a flat per-workspace price rather than a support-tiered subscription.
Does Tesbo Community have fewer features than the paid plan?
No feature is removed. Community has unlimited projects, members and test cases, and one core agent. The paid Cloud plan adds the full agent marketplace, Jira and Linear integrations, and hosting we manage for you.
What does Kiwi TCMS do better than Tesbo?
Official, maintained CI reporters for Playwright, Cypress and pytest specifically, and a nine-year track record with zero outbound network calls by design. If either of those is a hard requirement, Kiwi TCMS is still the stronger answer today.
Try it against your own suite
Stand up Tesbo Community next to your Kiwi TCMS instance and import one project into each. Both cost nothing to try properly.
Sources
- Kiwi TCMS — official site and pricing
- Kiwi TCMS — GitHub repository
- Kiwi TCMS — partner store price list
- Tesbo — pricing page
Last verified Sep 1, 2026.
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