Using public SaaS products for cross browser and mobile testing are popular option. And don’t get us wrong – they are great products. Depending on the industry you are in however, there are some points to consider. Especially in the financial and healthcare field, data privacy and security is of utmost importance and the use of SaaS solutions may not be compliant with internal processes and external regulations.
Below is a summary of issues when using public SaaS solutions and how Selenium Box solves them.

Data Privacy
Your test data is sent to the SaaS provider and is visible in clear on their systems.
If your test data is not 100% synthetically generated but is cloned form production, anonymized, or pseudonymized, your are likely breaching data privacy regulations (e.g. GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA) as well as your own privacy policy.
All test artifacts like screenshots, videos and logs are on the SaaS provider’s servers.
Selenium Box resides 100% inside your firewall
No data leaves your network

Security / External Access
An external access is required from the SaaS provider to your application under test.
This is typically achieved by using a tunnel between your and the SaaS provider.
By using a tunnel, the SaaS provider has access to the same systems as the machine where the tunnel is running on.
Selenium Box operates 100% inside your firewall
No external access or tunnels required .

Legal
Terms of Service from SaaS providers typically contain the following language:
You warrant to the SaaS provider that you have sufficient rights in the data that you are using to send it to 3rd parties.
You grant rights to the SaaS provider to use, store, modify, display the data.
You indemnify the SaaS provider in case you are not using exclusively dummy data and the results of a data privacy breach.
Keep full control over your data with Selenium Box and do not share it with anyone other than your own organization.