The good and bad of Selenium Test Automation

The world of Software testing has only evolved over the past few years. Organizations have clearly understood the enormous value a software testing activity brings in. In this article, you will get to know about one of the most popular automation tools that has proved to be a clear global winner and that is “Selenium.”

What is Selenium Test Automation?

Selenium has been qualified as one of the best open-source automation tools in the software testing domain. The whole suite of Selenium provides a range of testing solutions to solve a bevy of software testing related issues.

Why Selenium test automation is good?

1. It’s absolutely free: Though Selenium is a free product, the range of benefits it has provided in the automation testing zone is phenomenal. Though there is a competition with ‘Katalon studio’ which is another power-packed automation testing tool, but then it doesn’t work on the Linux platform, and doesn’t have huge followership as Selenium has. 

Individuals and start-ups who may not invest much in testing activities can easily go for Selenium without any second thought in terms of the performance and functionality of Selenium.

2. Agile and DevOps can be easily integrated: The working of Selenium is such that it is able to easily fall under the principles behind Agile and DevOps. How exactly this can be achieved?

·         Selenium is highly flexible and is portable across all platforms

·         Selenium can be easily integrated with different development platforms such as Maven, QMetry, SauceLabs, TestNG, Jenkins etc.

3. Mobile testing can be easily and effectively performed: With Selenium test automation, a tester can easily test hybrid, native or web mobile apps with utmost efficiency. There will be a requirement for additional software though. To conduct mobile testing with Selenium there are two options and those are Appium and Selendroid. Developers who are well-versed in these tools can easily test mobile apps.

4. A wide range of languages, browsers and platforms are supported: Some of the highly popular languages that fully support Selenium tool are Java, C#, Ruby, PHP, Python, JavaScript, Perl, Objective-C etc. Selenium works extremely well on platforms such as Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS. Selenium is also compatible with various browsers such as Google chrome, Internet explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Microsoft edge etc.

Why Selenium test automation is bad?

1. Programming language is required: There are some automated testing tools such as Ranorex and TestComplete that doesn’t require a tester to have deep knowledge in programming. But, when it comes to Selenium, a tester must have good knowledge in programming from a real-time implementation perspective devoid of which can prove to be ineffective in handling Selenium testing.

2. More focused on Web-based apps: For desktop applications, Selenium is not the right tool to conduct testing.  The objects in desktop apps cannot be recognized by Selenium. When it comes to web-based apps, Selenium is compatible with almost all web browsers. 

A combination of a particular testing tool with Selenium tool will work really well for desktop applications. Another best alternative for Selenium is Katalon which is capable of performing automation tests for both web-based and non web-based apps.

3. Poor reporting management: Whether it may be testers, developers or managers, they would require a certain reporting format where they can have a clear idea as to how the tests have been performed. Selenium’s drawback is that it doesn’t have any comprehensive reporting format which can be used by the testing team. The only option if Selenium is being used for testing activity is to bring in a third-party solution.

Conclusion: Organizations of today know to a certain extent what kind of loss can happen by making a wrong business decision. Hence, it would be really wise if the organization knows where exactly they are in terms of project requirements and whether “Selenium” can prove to be a game-changer for them.

About the author: I am a technical content writer and I write articles on various IT related topics. In this article, I have tried to share my views on the good and bad of Selenium test automation