Appium is not only one & quot; thing & quot;. It can automate multiple platforms, from iOS to Android and beyond. The way that Appium organize itself around this multi-platform model is by means of various & quot; drivers & quot;. This is more or less the like architecture as was first adopted by Selenium/WebDriver, which too utilizes a number of independent & quot; drivers & quot; in order to support the mechanization of multiple browsers.

There is one Appium driver per underlie automation technology. This almost means one Appium driver per program (one for iOS, one for Android, etc ...), but not quite. This is because some program (like Android) have multiple automation technologies which Appium targets to support automation of that platform. Android actually has 3 Appium driver: one based on UiAutomator, one based on UiAutomator 2, and one based on Espresso.

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How Drivers Work

The driver is arguably the most important construct in all of Appium. It & # x27; s finally the driver & # x27; s responsibility to turn the Appium API (known as the WebDriver Protocol) into automation for a particular platform. Drivers are essentially translators that become Appium client commands into ... something else -- -whatever gets the job done on the program!

For architectural simplicity among other reasons, each individual driver is itself a standalone WebDriver-compatible server (though it doesn & # x27; t have all the options the primary Appium host does) .Within the driver, command that are received are handled in idiosyncratic ways. They might be surpass on to a separate process running as a Java plan on an Android gimmick, for example.

Drivers themselves can have quite a complex intragroup architecture, sometimes relying on a whole stack of technology. Here & # x27; s a diagram showing the entire pot of technologies involved in the XCUITest driver (the current iOS driver):

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There & # x27; s quite a lot going on! The XCUITest driver is made available as part of Appium, and is brought to life whenever someone starts an iOS session. Internally, it spins up another bit of technology known as WebDriverAgent, which is responsible for turn WebDriver protocol commands into XCUITest library calls.

Many drivers have an architecture like this, though each driver can set up its architecture withal it likes, so long as, at the end of the day, it is print as an NPM bundle that exposes a grade which lead Appium & # x27; s BaseDriver class. This is what makes it possible for a driver to plug easily into Appium!

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The Drivers

Well, what driversarethere? It & # x27; s honestly a bit hard to say exactly, because there exist & quot; unofficial & quot; drivers in addition to the 1 that embark with Appium. But if we take a look at the current list in the Appium codebase itself, we can see a fair few:

const AUTOMATION_NAMES = {APPIUM: 'Appium ', UIAUTOMATOR2: 'UiAutomator2 ', UIAUTOMATOR1: 'UiAutomator1 ', XCUITEST: 'XCUITest ', YOUIENGINE: 'YouiEngine ', ESPRESSO: 'Espresso ', TIZEN: 'Tizen ', FAKE: 'Fake ', INSTRUMENTS: 'Instruments ', WINDOWS: 'Windows ', MAC: 'Mac ',};

These & quot; mechanisation names & quot; are the labels give to the various drivers which Appium know about. This bit of code defines which strings are allowed to be expend as values for the automationName capability. Of class, each driver typically solely supports one platform. Here & # x27; s a abbreviated description of each of the drivers, by theirautomationName:

• Appium:this mechanisation name really means & quot; just give me the default driver for the program I & # x27; ve chosen. & quot; It & # x27; s not actually a freestanding driver on its own.
• UiAutomator2 (repo): this is the current default Android driver, establish on Google & # x27; s UiAutomator technology.
• UiAutomator1 (repo): this is the old Android driver, based on an older edition of UiAutomator.
• XCUITest (repo): this is the current iOS driver, based on Apple & # x27; s XCUITest engineering.
• YouiEngine (repo): this is a driver make by You.i Labs, to indorse automation of apps on many different platforms built employ their SDK.
• Espresso (repo): this is the novel Android driver, establish on Google & # x27; s Espresso technology.
• Tizen (repo): this is a driver create by Samsung to assist in automation of Xamarin apps built for the Tizen OS.
• Fake:the & quot; wangle & quot; driver is used internally by Appium for the use of testing, and you shouldn & # x27; t need to ever use it!
• Instruments (repo): this is an older iOS driver free-base on an Apple engineering which was remove after iOS 9. Basically, don & # x27; t use this!
• Windows (repo): Microsoft put together an Appium-compatible waiter phoneWinAppDriver, and this is the driver that connects it up with the main Appium waiter. You can use this driver to automate Windows apps!
• Mac (repo): this is a driver which enables automation of Mac desktop apps.

As mentioned above, each of these drivers has its own internal architecture, as you can see in this detailed diagram:

Drivers FAQ

How do I know which driver to use?Well, if you need to automate iOS, Windows, Mac, or Tizen, your selection is simple: use the only driver which currently enable mechanisation of that platform! If you want to use Android, you receive the choice of the UiAutomator2 driver or the Espresso driver. It & # x27; s worth learning a bit about each of these technologies to see which one might better support your use case. The lineament set for these driver is similar but not monovular.

Do all the drivers support the same commands in the like way?Yes and no. At a certain fundamental level, we are limited by the automation capabilities provided by the program vender. A & quot; tap & quot; on an Android twist is the same as the & quot; tap & quot; on an iOS device. But other bidding might not work in just the same way. As far as possible the Appium team tries to ensure parity of behavior across platforms and drivers.

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Can I switch from one driver to another and expect my tests to pass?Yes and no. It all bet on which drivers we & # x27; re talking about. Part of the benefit of using Appium is that youcanchange from one automation engineering (like UiAutomator2) to another (like Espresso) without throw away your entire test retinue. But you should execute the migration slowly and methodically, making certain that everything is happening as you expect. The Appium team sometimes publishes migration guides for moving from one driver to another; check those out if possible!

Can I make my own driver?Yes! Lots of people get execute this, most latterly bothJason Huggins and myself(at AppiumConf 2019). But there are others too, like Christian Bromann & # x27; shbbtv-driver.

Will anything modification with drivers in Appium 2.0?I & # x27; m so happy you inquire! One unwieldy bit of Appium & # x27; s driver system is that we feature to include drivers as strict dependencies of the Appium host. But we want the drivers to exist in more of a loosely-related ecosystem, where you can pick and choose which drivers you want to use with Appium. This means that you won & # x27; t necessitate to install the old UiAutomator2 driver and its dependencies if all you are expend Appium for is lead iOS test! (Did you know there is aproposal for Appium 2.0 & # x27; s designout there on the Internet?)

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