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Marathon

Marathon is a GPL-2.0, platform-independent test runner for Android and iOS focused on performance and stability, with batching, device pools, sharding, sorting and preventive and post-factum retries.

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Introduction

Marathon is a project that helps execute mobile tests in the shortest time possible, with a focus on stability in the face of flakiness in the environment and in the tests. Its README describes it as a fast, platform-independent test runner with implementations for Android and iOS, plus an API for custom hardware farms.

Marathon implements key execution concepts: test batching, device pools, sharding, sorting, preventive retries and post-factum retries. It considers two aspects of each test, its expected duration and its probability of passing, using real-time statistics. The flakiness strategy queues preventive retries for tests expected to fail, and the sorting strategy runs long tests first so late retries do not extend the run. The primary goal is full control over the balance between stability, performance and cost. Configuration lives in a Marathonfile, and results include HTML reports, JUnit XML and timeline views. MarathonLabs also offers a commercial cloud service; the open-source runner is GPL-2.0, and version 0.10.5 was released on 21 July 2026.

The source code is at MarathonLabs/marathon on GitHub under the GPL-2.0 licence, with about 646 stars; the most recent commit was on 21 September 2026.

Features

  1. Smart scheduling: Duration- and flakiness-aware execution.
  2. Retries: Preventive and post-factum retry strategies.
  3. Device pools and sharding: Spread tests across many devices.
  4. Android and iOS: One runner for both platforms.

Pros

  1. Free to use: Open source under the GPL-2.0 licence, so the core tool costs nothing to use.
  2. Actively maintained: The repository had commits as recent as 21 September 2026.

Cons

  1. GPL-2.0 licence: Check compatibility with your tooling policies.
  2. Setup effort: Needs devices or emulators and configuration.
# Marathonfile
name: "Shop UI tests"
outputDir: "build/reports/marathon"
vendorConfiguration:
  type: "Android"
  applicationApk: "app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk"
  testApplicationApk: "app/build/outputs/apk/androidTest/debug/app-debug-androidTest.apk"
retryStrategy:
  type: "fixed-quota"
  totalAllowedRetryQuota: 50
marathon

Resources:

Pricing

Marathon is free and open source under the GPL-2.0 licence.

  1. Mobile teams with large, flaky UI suites across many devices.
  2. Teams self-hosting device farms.

Conclusion

Marathon is a sophisticated open-source runner for fast, stable Android and iOS UI test execution.

Alternatives

Other tools on CheckOps that cover similar ground. Open a page, or compare one with Marathon side by side.