Selenium HQ and Katalon Studio are competitors in the test automation software category. While Selenium HQ's open-source nature offers flexibility and cost-effectiveness, Katalon Studio's user-friendly interface and premium support provide an edge for enterprises seeking ease of deployment.
Features: Selenium HQ supports multiple programming languages like Java, C#, and Python and integrates with CI tools such as Jenkins. It excels in cross-browser testing and remote execution. In contrast, Katalon Studio simplifies automation with a user-friendly GUI, integrated features for recording and playback, and strong API testing capabilities, enabling easier onboarding for non-technical users.
Room for Improvement: Selenium HQ's documentation can be enhanced, especially for complex web elements like AJAX. Improving cross-browser compatibility and providing more built-in methods could assist less technical users. Katalon Studio should expand language support beyond Groovy and improve its integration with other tools, alongside refining its object repository and reporting features.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Selenium HQ and Katalon Studio support on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments. Selenium relies on a strong community for support due to its open-source nature, while Katalon offers official support for its licensed versions, providing a more structured service for enterprises.
Pricing and ROI: Selenium HQ is free and open-source, making it financially appealing for cost-conscious businesses. Katalon Studio follows a freemium model, with a paid version offering additional features. Despite a higher initial cost, Katalon's user-friendly interface and rapid deployment could justify the investment for companies prioritizing productivity.
I encountered a couple of issues during the initial setup, but customer care resolved them quickly.
Katalon's support is not very strong unless you opt for the enterprise version.
Documentation is good.
The marketplace community and forums are what we browse and look after, and we have found solutions whenever we tried to find anything.
I have not had the need to escalate questions to Selenium HQ tech support recently, as open community support is widely available and has been sufficient for our needs.
It allows me to develop, run, and deploy test cases extensively.
We can execute thousands of test cases weekly, and our automation coverage using Selenium HQ is approximately eighty-five percent.
It needs more stability when test cases are executed.
Stability is important as it saves time and provides valuable reports to higher management for decision-making.
Selenium HQ is a scalable solution; it has been in production for the last two years, but I have been working on it for the last six years, so it is definitely scalable.
Parallel execution is available, but not with the free version.
There is significant competition, so providing a good offer with extra features could be beneficial.
Providing clearer guidance during the trial period for certification and training modules would also help.
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.
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.
The approximate cost is around $8,000.
I recommend optimizing the pricing, as a moderate value around five would be preferred.
The pricing of Katalon Studio is affordable, making it a sensible option for those looking for an affordable range.
Additionally, it is easy to learn, quick to automate, and anyone can start automating test cases.
The browser compatibility and self-healing capabilities are excellent, which helps keep the code updated.
Katalon Studio has the highest number of integrations compared to other tools at a similar price point, such as Jira, Brokerstack, and Jenkins.
Selenium HQ supports multiple browsers via grid hosting and offers dynamic configuration setup for testing across Chrome, Edge, and Internet Explorer.
When we were doing these tests manually, it took several hours of effort, and those hours, when counted on the basis of person days, used to be maybe six or seven months of effort, which we can now do every day by running the pipeline.
Katalon Studio is a regression testing tool that enables you to go low-code, boost productivity, and ease scalability. It is suitable for all platforms and operating systems, regardless of application complexity. The software is built on top of the open-source automation frameworks Selenium and Appium, with a specialized IDE interface for web, API, mobile, and desktop application testing. As a robust automation tool, Katalon Studio lets you run automated tests of UI elements, including pop-ups, iFrames, and wait time. The solution is ideal for both large and small organizations.
Katalon Studio Features
Katalon Studio has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:
Katalon Studio Benefits
There are many benefits to implementing Katalon Studio. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:
Reviews from Real Users
Katalon Studio is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are that it has a valuable record and playback feature, is user friendly, and has fantastic integration capabilities.
Khurram K., Head of SQA, Project Manager at Vroozi, says, "The best thing about the solution is that there is a record and playback functionality. The solution allows for specific object files [and it] has great multi-parallel languages that work in the facilities here.”
Another PeerSpot user expresses the multiple benefits the solution provides for him exclaiming, “I'd describe it as extremely user-friendly. There's a lot of information that is readily available on the internet, and therefore it's easy to learn about the product itself. The scalability of the product is good. The solution was quite stable throughout the time I used it. We found the installation process to be quite simple. There is also very helpful online documentation that can help you if you ever get stuck during the implementation process itself,” comments a Senior Quality Assurance Analyst at an educational organization.
Tinnaphan W., Professional Services Manager at a non-profit, talks about the Katalon Studio’s advantages. He mentions, “The solution has very good integration capabilities overall. The client has an extremely stable testing framework, and therefore they rely on Katalon to get the results. The reporting is very good.”
Selenium HQ is an umbrella project that includes a number of tools and frameworks that allow for web browser automation. In particular, Selenium offers a framework for the W3C WebDriver specification, a platform- and language-neutral coding interface that works with all of the main web browsers.
Selenium is a toolset for automating web browsers that uses the best methods available to remotely control browser instances and simulate a user's interaction with the browser. It enables users to mimic typical end-user actions, such as typing text into forms, choosing options from drop-down menus, checking boxes, and clicking links in documents. Additionally, it offers a wide range of other controls, including mouse movement, arbitrary JavaScript execution, and much more.
Although Selenium HQ is generally used for front-end website testing, it is also a browser user agent library. The interfaces are universal in their use, which enables composition with other libraries to serve your purpose.
The source code for Selenium is accessible under the Apache 2.0 license. The project is made possible by volunteers who have kindly committed hundreds of hours to the development and maintenance of the code.
Selenium HQ Tools
These three main Selenium HQ tools have powerful capabilities:
Reviews from Real Users
Selenium HQ stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its driver interface and its speed. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:
Avijit B., an automation tester at a tech services company, writes of the solution, “The driver interface is really useful. When we implement the Selenium driver interface, we can easily navigate through all of the pages and sections of an app, including performing things like clicking, putting through SendKeys, scrolling down, tagging, and all the other actions we need to test for in an application.”
Another PeerSpot reviewer, a software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “Selenium is the fastest tool compared to other competitors. It can run on any language, like Java, Python, C++, and .NET. So we can test any application on Selenium, whether it's mobile or desktop."
We monitor all Regression Testing Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
