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IBM Rational Test Workbench vs Selenium HQ comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Rational Test Workbench
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (18th), API Testing Tools (16th), Test Automation Tools (27th)
Selenium HQ
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (5th), Regression Testing Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Quality Assurance solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Rational Test Workbench is designed for Performance Testing Tools and holds a mindshare of 2.0%, up 1.3% compared to last year.
Selenium HQ, on the other hand, focuses on Functional Testing Tools, holds 4.3% mindshare, up 3.5% since last year.
Performance Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Rational Test Workbench2.0%
OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional)16.6%
Tricentis NeoLoad13.9%
Other67.5%
Performance Testing Tools
Functional Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Selenium HQ4.3%
Tricentis Tosca9.4%
OpenText Functional Testing8.5%
Other77.8%
Functional Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1513668 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist, ITE at a government with 10,001+ employees
Good reporting and interface, but supports limited types of protocols and requires low-level script editing
It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there. What it does, it does great, but it only gives you limited types of protocols. It supports between 8 to 15 types of protocols, whereas other test tools give you 20 to 30 types of protocols with which you can do testing and convert to script. It records Javascript-based scripts, and you got to know a little bit of Java to basically be able to edit them, but the level of editing you got to do is very low. I like that, but the ability to edit the script is not as good as Parasoft or LoadRunner, which have C-Script.
Sujata Sujata Ghadage - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Manager consultant - Digital assurance Services at adrosonic
Automation in testing processes sees improvement with multi-browser support and easier website interactions
Selenium HQ could improve by including a robust reporting framework, eliminating the need for external frameworks. The tool could simplify object identification, enabling users to generate XPaths without requiring detailed DOM understanding. Additionally, an automatic update mechanism for Selenium HQ would be beneficial, eliminating the need for manual downloads and updates of browser drivers when new versions are released.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Using service virtualization, we are able to accelerate the testing and development activity."
"All IBM testing tools are really well integrated."
"This solution provides for API testing, functional UI testing, performance testing, and service virtualization."
"IBM Rational integrates the testing software as Rational Test Workbench, which is quite convenient and efficient as it is able to automate the test scripts."
"Reporting is pretty good. Its interface is also good. I'm overall pretty happy with the functionality and use of IBM Rational Test Workbench."
"It is a scalable solution."
"I do recommend Selenium HQ to other organizations because we are in a business that is primarily based on B2B interface."
"It is a straightforward application to learn."
"Selenium is now being implemented for testing in many browsers, e.g. IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Edge, etc., and we have implemented it in many other features in the form of a framework."
"QA becomes more technical and love to know more about technical and architecture of the code such as they have to use GitHub, CI system, servers, and etc."
"Go for it. This is one of the best open source solutions I know of."
"If you don’t have a budget, go with Selenium because it has a huge community and the versions are constantly updated."
"My personal advice is that it is such an amazing tool to work on."
 

Cons

"It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there. What it does, it does great, but it only gives you limited types of protocols. It supports between 8 to 15 types of protocols, whereas other test tools give you 20 to 30 types of protocols with which you can do testing and convert to script. It records Javascript-based scripts, and you got to know a little bit of Java to basically be able to edit them, but the level of editing you got to do is very low. I like that, but the ability to edit the script is not as good as Parasoft or LoadRunner, which have C-Script."
"Rational Performance Tester supports cloud technology in the version 8.7, playing test scripts back on the cloud is not stable."
"There are a number of things that they can do to simplify the tools, but the most important thing that they need to do is simplify the installation."
"Implementing custom functions is bit tedious job, as ECMA script does not support some of the standard java-script functions, Also the Script editor window is not user friendly."
"It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there."
"The solution does not offer up enough information in regards to personality testing."
"Currently, we are using Excel as our data source. I don't know if we have that capability to provide different data sources such as SQL Server, CSV, or maybe some other databases, so that kind of capability would be great."
"Due to its high rate in releases sometimes working code cannot be executed after an upgrade due to a new feature or different behaviour."
"Integrating test reporting with WebDriver directly Support for major browsers directly."
"Selenium HQ can improve the authorization login using OTP, it is not able to be done in this solution."
"Selenium only supports web based applications and it is not suitable for testing small sized products which can be easily tested manually."
"It is not easy to make IE plus Selenium work good as other browsers. Firefox and Chrome are the best ones to work with Selenium."
"Some parts are not automatable, especially CAPTCHAs and complex applications where objects are not identified properly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a little bit on the higher side, although it is really good."
"It doesn't really concern me. Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Selenium is an open-source solution, and It's free."
"Selenium HQ is open source and our use of it in our company is provided for free."
"It's open-source, so there's no need to pay for a license."
"The solution is open-source, so it is 100% free with no hidden charges."
"Selenium is free software so we do not pay licensing costs."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Selenium is an open-source product. It is free."
"This product is open source and free. That was a huge deciding factor for us getting into it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise52
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
How do I choose between Selenium HQ and Eggplant Digital Automation Intelligence?
Selenium HQ’s biggest advantage is that it is customizable. Its other most valuable feature is that the driver interface is really helpful and user-friendly; Selenium HQ makes it easy to navigate t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Selenium HQ?
I will give an eight for my satisfaction with the pricing and licensing costs of Selenium HQ.
What needs improvement with Selenium HQ?
Some improvements can be implemented as compared to Playwright, which is why I rate it seven out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Rational Test Workbench, IBM Rational Performance Tester, IBM Functional Tester, IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server
SeleniumHQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Financial Insurance Management Corp.
BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, experitest, Tricentis GmbH, SmartBear Software
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, OpenText, Tricentis and others in Performance Testing Tools. Updated: October 2026.
919,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.