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The most commonly used framework for performing automation testing is Selenium. To begin with, it’s important to understand what is Selenium?. , It is a robust suite of equipment and libraries designed to automate web browser interactions. It replicates how a person moves within browsers and consists of a server to manipulate browser use across exclusive platforms. Supporting the W3C WebDriver widely allows testers to write code that works seamlessly across all foremost net browsers.
This guide on Selenium will provide you with everything you need to understand what Selenium is and how to get started with the Selenium framework.
What is Selenium?
Selenium library is used to automate website and web application testing. Its capacity to check across exclusive environments stems from its pass-browser, pass-language, and cross-platform capabilities.
Selenium fits well with modern development tactics and works with coding languages like Java, JavaScript, C#, PHP, Python, and Ruby. It also works with primary web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Opera, to provide complete browser checking out.
The Selenium suite has three major components: Selenium WebDriver, Selenium Grid, and Selenium IDE.
Why Use Selenium for Automation Testing?
Selenium’s gear for automation testing assists developers and testers in using web browsers to test web applications. This allows them to create test scripts in numerous programming languages, execute tests on different browsers and systems, and ensure that their testing approaches are correct and powerful.
Here are some key motives for picking Selenium for automation.
Multilingual Support
It supports many coding languages, including Java, Python, PHP, C#, Ruby, and JavaScript. This flexibility allows testers to work with languages they know best, helping them do their job more efficiently.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
Selenium works seamlessly on various operating systems, such as Windows, macOS, and Linux. This allows testers to run tests across different platforms and ensures consistent results in any environment.
Cross Browser Testing
Selenium supports automated testing on various web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and more. This extensive coverage ensures that web applications run smoothly across different browsers.
Framework Integration
It effortlessly integrates with various testing frameworks supported by Selenium-compatible languages, such as TestNG, JUnit, TestCafe, and more. This integration enhances the automation testing process by leveraging each framework’s unique strengths.
Parallel Testing
Parallel testing with Selenium allows you to run multiple test suites or cases simultaneously, significantly cutting down overall testing duration. You can perform these tests locally or on a cloud-based grid, accelerating your software release cycles. Selenium’s grid lets you execute test scripts on both local and cloud grids. Cloud testing ensures smooth communication between your test scripts and remote browser instances, enabling flawless test execution on your chosen browsers.
Headless Browser Testing
Headless browser testing with Selenium enables faster test execution, optimal resource use, and improved testing scalability. It’s especially effective for end-to-end testing, regression testing, performance testing, visual regression testing, and web scraping for data extraction.
What Types of Testing Can Selenium Automate?
Selenium can help you with browser automation with various types of testing. Below are some of them.
Functional Testing
In functional testing, Selenium is used to ensure a website works as required. It automates tests that check specific features by simulating user actions like clicking, typing, and navigating.
Regression Testing
Regression testing with Selenium means re-running existing tests to ensure new changes haven’t affected current functionalities. This is crucial in continuous development environments where websites or web applications are frequently updated. Selenium automates these tests, offering quick feedback on the effects of recent code updates and helping maintain the website’s stability over time.
Visual Testing
It is a process of ensuring a website or web application looks and functions as intended without any unexpected changes.
Smoke Testing
Smoke testing with Selenium runs basic tests to validate a website’s functions. This quick testing phase checks the website’s health after a new build or update goes live.
Cross Browser Testing
Selenium is excellent for cross-browser testing. It runs tests across multiple browsers to ensure the website’s behavior and appearance are consistent.
Data-Driven Testing
It uses multiple sets of input data to validate the website’s behavior in each scenario. This approach enhances test coverage and ensures the website’s robustness across various data-driven use cases.
UI Testing
UI testing checks the visual elements of a web application. This type of testing confirms both the usability and the visual appeal of the website.
Monkey Testing
Monkey testing involves breaking the system by providing random inputs and mimicking end-user actions. These inputs can be clicks, scrolls, or dummy text strings. With Selenium, you can create test scripts to automate this type of testing.
Popular Frameworks for Selenium Testing
Choosing a test automation framework is crucial in the automation testing process. The framework should align with the team’s skills and be assessed for its ease of use, scalability, and capacity to handle complex test cases.
- Selenium Java: Selenide, Gauge, TestNG, Geb, JUnit, Cucumber, Serenity BDD
- Selenium Python: unittest, pytest, Behave, Robot, Lettuce
- Selenium JavaScript: WebdriverIO, Nightwatch.js, Mocha, Jest, AngularJS, Cucumber, Jasmine, Karma, TestCafe, Nemo.js, Protractor
- Selenium C#: SpecFlow, MSTest, NUnit
- Selenium Ruby: RSpec, Cucumber, test-unit, Capybara
- Selenium PHP: Laravel, Codeception, PHPUnit, Behat
Here are some popular test automation frameworks for the most widely used programming languages supported by Selenium:
– Java Testing Frameworks
– Python Testing Frameworks
– JavaScript Testing Frameworks
– C# Testing Frameworks
– Ruby Testing Frameworks
– PHP Testing Frameworks
Selenium Testing on Local Grid
Using Selenium for automation testing on local infrastructure is a great starting point for checking browser compatibility. However, the effectiveness of using a local Selenium Grid for automated browser testing depends on the project’s size and complexity, and it may not always offer complete test coverage.
Here, we’ll use the Java programming language and the TestNG framework to run tests on the local grid, specifically using the Chrome browser.
– Use Chrome WebDriver to open the LambdaTest Sample ToDo App.
– Mark the first two items on the ToDo list as complete.
– Type “Yey, Let’s add it to the list” into the text box.
– Click the Add button to verify that the new item is successfully added to the list.
Selenium Testing on Cloud Grid
Selenium testing on a local grid is suitable for limited test coverage but is insufficient for extensive browser coverage. In such cases, using a cloud Selenium Grid for automation testing is beneficial, as it enhances test and browser coverage by allowing testing across various browser and OS combinations.
One such cloud-based platform is LambdaTest. It is an AI-powered test execution platform that allows you to run automated tests at scale across 3000+ browsers and OS combinations.
This platform allows you to run tests using more than one testing framework simultaneously, and they provide ready-to-use test infrastructure and allow you to focus on test execution rather than worrying about the test setup and maintenance.
Conclusion
Combining Selenium with other tools and libraries creates new ways to boost your testing abilities. When you use tools like TestNG, JUnit, or Cucumber to manage tests and join them with CI/CD pipelines through Jenkins or Travis CI, you can make your testing process smoother and achieve ongoing integration and delivery.
Also, pairing Selenium with cloud platforms such as LambdaTest ensures that you have full test coverage on different browsers and devices.
Selenium’s real strength comes from how flexible it is and how well it works with many other tools and libraries. This teamwork not only boosts your testing productivity and impact but also helps your apps give users the best experience possible. When you use these combinations, you’ll be at the cutting edge of test automation, ready to face even the toughest testing problems with skill and accuracy.