Whenever AQA engineers start talking about automated testing, Selenium always finds its way to the conversation. Released in 2004, it has become one of the key tools for web app testing. Selenium has matured to a world-class automated testing tool that can boast about simplicity, availability, and ease of use.
In this article, you can learn about the basics of Selenium. What tools does this software include? What are the functions of its different components? There are so many pros of using Selenium, but are there any cons? Let’s find out.
Selenium is a set of open-source tools that automates web browsers with specific browser bindings. It’s largely used for web application testing but not limited to it. Selenium supports numerous programming languages (C#, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, PHP), testing frameworks, and third-party libraries. Also, Selenium can be used for screen scraping.
Selenium uses its own toolbox to run tests across different browser instances. It suits for:
Actually, any test you can run in a browser can be run with Selenium. You just need to learn to set it up 😉
Each piece of the Selenium suite caters for a different testing need. The tool has three main components (considering that Remote Control and WebDriver have been merged), each with a different approach to automated testing .
Usually, when we talk about Selenium, we mean Selenium WebDriver – a tool for automating web app testing. WebDriver interacts with a browser directly. That’s what differentiates it from Remote Control: the latter needs a separate app to launch. A QA specialist commands WebDriver to interact with certain elements, and the browser responds with information about values and statuses of web elements, which are later recorded to the script.
IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. It is available as a Firefox and Chrome extension that quickly generates tests through the record and playback functionality. Selenium IDE is perfect for prototyping tasks. To be fair, half of QA engineers reject this record/run tool, while the other half celebrate it. However, for teams that find Selenium WebDriver too high of an entry point, Selenium IDE with some plugins on top may be a possible solution.
This is a tool that allows you to run parallel tests on multiple browsers, machines, and operating systems. When used in large production environments, Selenium Grid is just a time-saver. Let’s say you need to run 100 tests. With this tool, you can set up four virtual or physical machines. So, it’ll take you about one-fourth of the time you would spend running all the scripts on a single device.
Also, you can use Selenium Grid to test an app in different browsers simultaneously: one machine would be running tests in Firefox, while the other would work in Chrome.
As Selenium evolved, the mentioned tools have changed – and merged, in some cases. Knowing what each tool can be used for is a starting point for better understanding of Selenium testing. But how do you know which one to use?
From project to project, you’ll have to cope with different requirements. The specifics of each product (or its particular features) defines what functionality for AT you’ll need, and correspondingly what tool will work best for this case.
In short:
Selenium has very detailed guides and a large user community, so you won’t have problems figuring out the details of WebDriver, IDE, or Grid.
How does good old Selenium manage to stay at the top of the list of best tools with dozens of excellent AT solutions appearing on the market every year? Let’s take a look at its advantages.
As a rule, every software product comes with a couple of pain points. And unfortunately, Selenium is not an exception. Here are some its drawbacks:
Selenium has a few aces up its sleeve: fast delivery, flexibility, and easy integration with various tools. Investing time in exploring the Selenium and its capabilities will set you up with a solid foundation in test automation. Long story short, Selenium testing is the base. So even if it is not the tool the team you are to join uses, getting familiar with Selenium is a must for AQA beginners.
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