Some Selenium has been used as a test automation framework and has been the standard for DevOps teams. Selenium is open source and its suite includes components such as Selenium WebDriver, Selenium IDE and Selenium Grid.
- WebDriver is used to create test scripts.
- The IDE and its suite includes components such as Selenium WebDriver, Selenium IDE and Selenium Grid, making it suitable for beginners.
- Selenium Grid allows you to run multiple tests simultaneously and offers multiple physical and virtual devices.
Selenium is considered a convenient tool, but today there are alternatives that attract new users. Unlike Selenium, alternatives do not have its disadvantages. Let's clarify exactly what difficulties and difficulties arise when working with Selenium:
- Required coding. DevOps engineers focus on coding and innovation, while non-technical tasks are assigned to testers. Selenium alternatives offer automated testing and only require coding.
- No built-in image comparison. Selenium doesn't have a built-in diff solution feature, so you have to use third party resources.
- Limited reporting. Selenium limits reporting capabilities, so the only way to solve this problem is to use third-party plugins.
No native or mobile web support. Selenium is a portable web application testing framework. However, it does not support the mobile web application testing feature.
Alternatives for Selenium
BrowserCloud
BrowserCloud is a convenient platform for automated testing. It manages a large network of full-featured Chrome browsers running on high-performance AMD cores and speeds up testing with parallel sessions. BrowserCloud allows you to forget about setting dependencies, fonts, memory leaks, and maintaining your own infrastructure. The main features of BrowserCloud:
- High-performance and scalable solution for browser automation: run hundreds of browsers simultaneously in the cloud with real-time monitoring and provides web scraping functionality
- One tool for many applications: End-to-End Testing, Web Scraping, PDF/Image rendering, ... any web automation!
- Allows you to switch your automation scripts to the scalable cloud solution by changing just a few lines of code.
Cypress
Cypress is an open source and automated testing platform. The platform has two types of tools:
- Cypress Test Runner to run tests in the browser
- Cypress Dashboard for CI Toolkit Cypress's tools follow modern development principles, and its 4 Bundle was released on 15/10/20. Additionally, the platform has some nice features that make it a great alternative to Selenium:
- Allows you to write tests while developing an application in real time
- Provides test snapshots from the command log
- Automatically approves decisions
WebdriverIО
Unlike Cypress, WebdriverO does not offer commercial options. It is a framework for automating web and mobile applications. It is used for end-to-end testing or testing an application using JavaScript/TypeScript. If WebdriverIO is combined with WebdriverProtocol, the functionality of the tool expands and new capabilities appear. For example, a programmer can conduct cross-browser testing. Main features of Webdriver IO
- Test suite scales and remains stable
- Allows you to expand your installation using built-in plugins or those provided by the community
- Includes built-in tools for testing mobile applications
- Easy to set up
Playwright
Playwright is developed by Microsoft contributors. Playwright is open source and is used to automate testing of Chromium, Firefox and WebKit based browsers through a single API. The platform supports several programming languages, including Java, Python, C# and NodeJS. Main features of Playwright
- Easy setup and configuration
- Supports various browsers including Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox
- Multilingual support
- Provides the ability to test browsers in parallel
- Provides support for multiple tabs/browsers
Cucumber
Cucumber is an automation tool for behavior-driven development (BDD). Although Cucumber was originally written in the Ruby programming language, it has been translated into Java and JavaScript. Unlike Selenium, the tool allows the user to test scripts without coding using the Gherkin scripting language. Main features of Cucumber:
- Helps to attract business stakeholders without reading code skills
- Focus on user experience
- Enables code reuse thanks to a simple writing style
- Easy to set up and implement
NightwatchJS
NightwatchJS is a Node.js based framework that uses the Webdriver protocol. It allows you to conduct various tests, including end-to-end testing, component testing, visual regression testing, and so on. In addition, NightwatchJS is used for native testing of mobile applications. Key features of Nightwatch:
- Test scripts are easy to read
- They can be used for various types of testing
- The framework is easily customizable and expandable
- Page object template supported
In conclusion
There are many alternative tools other than Selenium that offer robust features for both testers and developers. Each of them has its pros and cons, and some can even be used with the Selenium framework. When choosing a specific tool, you need to consider the DevOps team's goals, competencies, testing scope, and other factors related to a specific product.