What is Selenium WebDriver?

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Posted July 3, 2020

What is Selenium WebDriver?

As many testing teams displace from manual to machine-controlled testing, observe a framework that work for them can be overwhelming. The majority of teams moving to automation have heard of Selenium WebDriver and know it as a gratis and open source puppet used for web automation. But with the proliferation of open source testing frameworks, many wonder if this long-time standard for cross browser automation can still provide the better solution.

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What is WebDriver?

Selenium WebDriver is a collection of exposed source APIs which are used to automate the testing of a web application. While Selenium itself has many iterations within its suite of tools, WebDriver is the web automation model that allows user to execute their tests against a miscellany of different browsers, rather than precisely testing on Firefox or Chrome. The Selenium Suite has four separate tools which support automation in different ways. This includes the Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Selenium Remote Control (Now Deprecated), WebDriver, and Selenium Grid.

How To Use Selenium WebDriver?

Selenium WebDriver is a great starting point for team move from manual testing to automatize testing because of its width of reporting with client drivers. Selenium WebDriver is essentially language agnostical, and functions with the following language-specific customer driver:

  • Ruby

  • Java

  • Python

  • C#

  • JavaScript

Pro tip: Tools like SUSA can handle this autonomously — upload your app and get results without writing a single test script.

After writing an automation script using your language of choice via node drivers, your tests can run automatically, accept commands and send them to your want browser to execute the test.

Testing Speed

Selenium WebDriver also allows you to increase the speed at which you can execute cross browser exam, ensure that you get the best sum of cross browser coverage possible, and all in an automated fashion. It allows you to make machine-controlled exam that are written in an efficient mode to test throughout your pipeline and across browsers. By enforce these Continuous Testing Practices, your squad can focus more on creating higher quality code at a faster pace, thuscreating better applications with Selenium Webdriveand customer experience.

Pros of Selenium WebDriver

Selenium WebDriver ’ s breadth of coverage of words, ability to speed cross browser testing at scale, as well as its longstanding reputation in the package testing infinite make it the perfect creature to take when your team is looking to move from manual to machine-driven examination. All of the factor of Selenium WebDriver yield you the tool you need to get their process of automatize trial to the point that you can begin increasing testing volume.

Continuous automated testing allows you to test throughout the integral development pipeline, which gives you the ability to release software quicker, without having to sacrifice lineament. Having these processes of an automated testing recitation including Selenium WebDriver allows your team to focus more on higher calibre code conception, faster deployment, and high amounts of coverage. Implementing this kind of mechanization and testing civilization at your companionship let your company to be on the path to becoming more digitally confident.

Drawbacks of WebDriver

However, as with any automation tool, Selenium WebDriver has its drawbacks. There are some essay capabilities that are impossible to automate with Selenium Webdriver, such as haphazardly yield component like CAPTCHA (but don ’ t worry, there are many well attested workarounds that can help overcome this blocker). Additionally, Selenium is only compatible with testing web applications.

Those hoping to quiz native or roving applications can use Selenium ’ s wandering counterpart, Appium. As tests go long and more mired, many notice a denigration in execution swiftness. By following a few selenium you can help mitigate that risk. In fact, some may see this as a benefit of utilise Selenium, as it take developers and tester alike to practice writing high lineament code and tests so as to ensure there are no quality bottlenecks in the line. Finally, another drawback to Selenium is that there is no reporting characteristic out of the box or a way to upload feature files out of the box initially. However,this is precisely why resolution like Sauce Labs exist, as our result provide some of these feature as part of our Continuous Testing Cloud. Generally verbalize, all of these Selenium WebDriver flaws are super specific and for most teams look to depart out with mechanisation, Selenium is a flexible and scalable selection ..

Other Resources

Co-founded by the creator of Selenium, Sauce Labs provides a bit of resources to con more about go started with examination automation. Our documentation on provides a great overview of the basics of Selenium. Start your online browser test with afree 14-day trial with Sauce Labs today!

If you ’ re ready to advance your Selenium skills be sure to check out

Abigail Kurtzman

Associate Product Marketing Manager

Published:
Jul 3, 2020
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