What is Selenium?
Selenium is an open-source browser automation tool with Apache Licence 2.0 and it contains a large number of inbuilt libraries for web application testing. It is capable of automating nearly all the web browsers like Chrome, Brave, Firefox, etc. Its stable version was released in October 2021. It is a cross-platform software that was written using different programming languages like Python, Ruby, JavaScript, etc.
Advantages of Selenium
- Support for Mobile Studies: Though Selenium is especially used for web applications, its capabilities may be prolonged to mobile structures via integrating it with Appium to offer mobile internet utility testing.
- Execution of Tests in Parallel: Tests can be run in parallel on several computers and browsers at once with Selenium Grid. As a result, the test execution time is much decreased.
- Record and Replay Functionality: Testers can document and replay their take a look at operations using the report and playback functionality supplied by means of Selenium IDE, a factor of Selenium.
- Allows for Multiple Browser Support: Numerous browsers, inclusive of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge, are supported with the help of Selenium.
Disadvantages of Selenium
- Issues with Synchronization: Synchronization problems, including waiting for components to load or become interactive, can occur in Selenium tests.
- No Reporting Integrated: The complexity increases when testers have to connect with external frameworks like TestNG or JUnit in order to generate test results.
- Managing Adaptive Web Components: Dynamic content that changes often, including items that load asynchronously or that appear and disappear in response to user interactions, might be difficult for Selenium to handle.
- Writing Complex Advanced Scripts: Writing effective Selenium test scripts can be challenging and call for strong programming abilities. Managing peculiarities unique to individual browsers and performance-enhancing scripts can be difficult tasks.
Difference between Appium and Selenium
Selenium and Appium are two popular open-source frameworks for automating web and mobile apps respectively. Both offer robust testing tools, but they are complimentary rather than interchangeable due to the fact they’re designed for numerous contexts and feature exclusive abilities and use cases.