Everything You Should Know about Selenium, an Automation Tool for Testing Web Application

What is Selenium? Advantages over Manual testing.

Testing is one of an integral part that significantly influences the success of any software project. The selection of testing type, Whether it is manual or automated depends on the multiple factors like project requirements, resources, timeline, expertise, and suitability. Time, cost, and quality are key factors that determine the efficiency of the project. The ultimate goal of any project is to minimize the building cost and time to complete on predetermined or projected timelines without compromising the quality. When it comes to testing, Selenium will accomplish this goal better than any other.

Selenium is the most popular and open source automation tool with immense benefits. And it is very easy to get started with for functional testing of web applications and other software applications.

Selenium enables to record and rerun the multiple scripts of web applications. A few months back Selenium 3.0 is available and testing experts are mapping the roadmap for next versions. Have a look at the advantages of selenium over manual testing.

1. Open-Source:

As mentioned earlier, Opensource and Portability are the greatest strength and influence of Selenium. You can start using the tool by downloading and the big community will assist or help you whenever you stuck with your project.

2. Supports languages:

Selenium supports several languages that including Java, Ruby, Perl, Python, C#, Groovy, JavaScript, etc. It doesn’t limit to any language even though it has own script. The developers/testers can work in whichever language they comfortable.

3. Supports Operating Systems:

You can operate or practice the selenium for testing the web applications on multiple Operating Systems (OS) like Windows, Mac, Linux, UNIX, etc. Selenium Suite of solutions offers testing of web applications can be tailored at one platform and then executed on another one. For example, you can create or write test cases using Windows OS and run it on a Linux system.

4. Support across browsers:

Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer are the selenium supportive browsers, This becomes highly capable while executing tests and testing it across various browsers simultaneously.

The browsers supported by the Selenium packages are:

Selenium IDE can be used as a plug-in with Firefox
Selenium RC and Webdriver support various browsers such as Chrome, Internet Explorer and etc.

5. Constant updates

The community of selenium is very big and constantly supports for updates and upgrades. The upgrades don’t require any special training or assistance. This makes Selenium resourceful and cost-effective as well.

6. Loaded Selenium Suits

Selenium is not just a single tool. It is a loaded pack of suite containing various testing tools. Every tool is designed to fulfill the requirement or needs of a specific test environment. In addition, Selenium appears with capabilities to support Selenium Remote Control (RC), Selenium IDE, Selenium Grid.

7. Easy to use

The User-friendly interface of selenium helps in creating and executing tests easily and effectively. Even it easies the job of writing scripts on the extensions and making manipulations for the customized scripts at an advanced level.

The users or tester can watch the tests while they are executed on across browsers. Additionally, it allows the testers to extract and take required actions on the reporting tool.

8. Reusability and Add-ons

The scripts, tester write on selenium can be used or tested on multiple browsers. It is possible to execute multiple tests covering multiple aspects of functional testing by executing add-on tools to expand the scope of testing.

Conclusion

The use or practice of selenium tool gradually increasing as per demands of the projects and it helps in achieving the perfection of the web application at less duration.