Discovering the Role of Selenium in Automation Testing

You cannot complete the topic of Automation testing without referring to Selenium. Selenium is the Best Tool for automation testing and is loved by developers and testers worldwide. The major question remains that in this competitive market, there are various alternatives to Selenium. So, the developers may not justify the choice of Selenium. In this article, we will discuss the different reasons that make Selenium better than any other tool.

What is Selenium?

Before we discuss the benefits of Selenium, we must first understand Selenium and its purpose. In simple terms, Selenium is an open-source automation testing tool. It carries out application testing on various browsers and comprises of a set of tools for different companies. There are primarily four types of tools:

• Selenium RC was the most primitive form of their tool.
• Selenium IDe helps for the development of a testing environment.
• A Grid form of Selenium that you can use to coordinate the testing process.
• The Selenium Web Driver that you can use to control all the browser testing.

All the various parts of Selenium, namely web driver and grid, are merged into one tool. We will discuss this new version in this article.

The purpose of the use of Selenium

The basic function of Selenium is to automate the testing of web applications across all web browsers. Selenium has support for almost all web browsing platforms. It means that you can use it on Chrome, Mozilla, Firefox, and IE. The Selenium Web Driver can help you to automate the entire process of web browser testing. Using this tool, you can keep track of all the live web testing operations. Thus, you can notice all the errors, if any, just by looking at your computer screen.

Now, it is time that we come back to the major question in this article. We will discuss various reasons that make Selenium better than any other automation testing tool.

Advantages of Using Selenium for Automation Testing

1. Language and Framework Support

For a tester, the tool must support the programming language of his choice. So, when the tester chooses a tool for testing purposes, this is one of his priorities. However, if you are using Selenium, you need not worry as Selenium has support for a wide range of programming languages like Java, C++, Python, Ruby, peal, etc. Selenium will allow you to use any programming language to write the code. Later, it will convert the file into Selenium compatible code instantly. It eliminates the need to learn Selenium specific languages for using it.

 The dedicated Framework that Selenium has for every language helps you to write the code in various specific languages. It is essentially useful for people who are new to Selenium and need to get the hang of it. Thus, when using Selenium for testing automation, you don’t need to worry about any specific language or any Framework incompatibility. It will support your knowledge as a developer and help use the language you know. In simple words, it will allow you to write the code in any specific language and later convert it into the respective one. Testers who are new to the industry will get rid of any worry about software testing tools. Selenium does all the extra jobs for you. Thus, you can concentrate completely on writing the specific code for testing.

2. Open Source Availability

One of the major advantages of Selenium is that it is open-source software. Thus, it is completely free to use. Furthermore, any person who has the current knowledge of development can add changes to it, making it a better tool. Additionally, it is publicly available and does not have any extra charges for use. Thus, as a new developer or a new tester, you can save this extra money and invest it for any other use that can help the company to grow.

Selenium has a very interactive community of enthusiasts and Tech developers, which means that it is always evolving, adding new features and new technology to Selenium. This software will continue growing in the coming years and continue to offer superior features to all of its users. Additionally, since this software is open source, the testers can modify the codes and change them as per their requirements. This proves that the software is a very flexible language that allows all the people to adopt it and vary according to it while allowing you to change its predefined functions and classes. So, we can easily justify why Selenium has become one of the most reliable automation tools. The ease of generating testing scripts is one of the major functions that makes it an industrial success and proves its functionality.

3. Support for Multiple Browser

Selenium script’s basic motto is that “one script for all browsers” means you can use one single script to test your application on almost all the web browsers available in the industrial market. Various surveys have found that Selenium supports Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Edge Browser. These are some of the prominent examples where Selenium takes over any other test software because many software have support for only the prime and major browsers. However, it deprives the basic user base who still uses the older version of browsers. Depriving the base users is a huge mistake that various companies make as the base users constitute a major portion of the internet. So, if you are a web development company, you would want to have as much of the market as possible to make a name in this competitive world.

Thus, this support has a dual purpose. Firstly, it helps the developers as they don’t need to write a separate script for every browser they want to support. Secondly, it supports the user as they can use any application without worrying whether it would support their browser or not.

4. Support across Various Operating Systems

It is not enough to support various browsers. It would help if you had support for the various operating systems because they cannot determine the OS that users will be using. So, you must ensure that your web application is operational on almost all the major web browsers. Thus, Selenium ensures that it is highly portable and supports almost all the OS that is out there, which means that you can run the application on Windows, Linux, Mac, Unix, etc.

Selenium allows you to create a suit on any operating system, and then you can use it to test on another platform. Thus, it enables your abilities as a developer and saves a lot of time. Additionally, the developers can interact with the software and perform more easy test automation scripts. They don’t have to lay any special emphasis on an operating system in which it will run.

5. Ease of Implementation

Selenium is very easy to use automation tool. It provides a very user-friendly interface that can help any developer create test scripts and effectively perform the testing process. Additionally, it allows you to watch the live testing and manage the activities in progress. Thus, as a developer, you can analyze the test reports and take any action if required.

Selenium will never let you feel lonely in the industry. There is a massive community of Selenium developers always ready to help any developer in need. Thus, you can ask or consult them for any query or anything you want to learn about Selenium. It helps to transform the community and make it a progressive web testing society.

6. Reusability and Integrations

We have already discussed that Selenium is a reusable software. Thus, it can be used on all the platforms and browsers that your company is using. Additionally, various companies have to write the same code for every software they develop. Selenium will help you save a lot of time by eliminating the need to write the same code repeatedly. However, Selenium isn’t an all-purpose testing tool. You cannot test all the functionality of the application by depending on just Selenium. So, you have to use certain third-party applications to increase your testing range diameter and complete the process properly.

For instance, you can integrate Selenium with various applications that can help you to manage the test case and generate an accurate testing report. For achieving a continuous rate of testing, you have to use other applications that can do this job without breaking it or hampering the process integration. On the other hand, Selenium does not have the proper integration for image-based testing, and you have to rely on third-party applications to perform this process. Cloud-based testing is another important part of Automation Testing. So, let us take a look at the best cloud-based testing tool that you can integrate with Selenium to make an ultimate automated testing environment.

• LambdaTest

LambdaTest is the best cloud-based automation testing tool that you can use in the present industry. It allows you to test your software and web application on over 2,000 Browsers and hundreds of real devices. The testing engine’s cloud environment allows you to test the application on devices that have just been released to the market. Thus, if you can pair LambdaTest with Selenium then, you will create the best testing environment. Additionally, it has various free plans and reasonably priced plans that can help new developers or start-up companies make their name in the world of Selenium testing. Thus, we would highly recommend you check out LambdaTest and integrate it as a third-party application in your Selenium testing environment.

The Verdict

So, we can easily conclude that Selenium is the best automation testing tool that you can use. Various reasons make it superior to all the other tools available in the market. Its user-friendly design and simple to use nature can help all the new testers in the industry to use it and make their name in the future. Lastly, we would like to recommend all the readers to check out LambdaTest. This amazing tool has the potential to renovate your entire testing environment.