Selenium HQ Reviews and Pricing

QA Automation Engineer with 501-1,000 employees

Feb 18, 2016

An overview of the Selenium Suite

Pros and Cons

"While it isn't without faults, Selenium is probably the best and most versatile web testing tool available."

"The IDE portion is useful for doing quick recordings of steps, but the resulting scripts are extremely fragile."

Selenium is an open-source browser automation suite consisting of three parts: WebDriver, Server/Grid, and IDE. The IDE portion s useful for doing quick recordings of steps, but the resulting scripts are extremely fragile. This portion is also slated for deprecation with the upcoming release of Selenium 3.0. The remaining two-thirds of the suite are the most useful parts of this product.

The WebDriver API is the interface used to control browsers. Most popular browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.) are supported either directly or through secondary server interfaces that are available via the SeleniumHQ.org website. The ability to write tests that can be used cross-browser and cross-platform is one of the most valuable aspects of this product. In addition to being a cross-platform solution, Selenium has been ported from the original Java to multiple languages including Python, Ruby, and C#, which makes it a feasible option regardless of the language most frequently used in your organization.

Selenium Server/Grid allows for controlling a browser on a remote machine. If a grid is implemented, the tests will provide information regarding the browser and environment needed and the hub will then direct the test to an appropriate node. When the test is completed, the results are return via the hub. Establishing an in-house grid can be costly and difficult to maintain if your product requires multiple OSs and browsers. To date, my experience has been limited to working within a local grid environment, but other options, such as SauceLabs, can be used to outsource the grid while keeping the test development in-house.

One drawback of Selenium is that is does require development experience in order to create tests are not fragile and can be reused. There are many resources to teach someone how to use the API and some recommended strategies, such as the Page Object Model. The testing framework can be developed to work with Cucumber front-end to allow non-developers to create tests using Given-When-Then scenarios.

In regards to pricing, the Selenium Suite is a free automation API. This means that the cost of implementation is limited to personnel time and hardware required. This is an excellent deal when you consider that the learning curve/employee time and hardware tend to be the same regardless of the product used.

While it isn't without faults, Selenium is probably the best and most versatile web testing tool available. I highly recommend it's use over any of the products I have used in the past.

Update for 2.49.1:

The version seems to be a bit buggy. I noticed a greater sensitivity to screen resolutions and intermittent issues connecting with Firefox over Selenium Grid. I was forced to revert to 2.45.0 by these instabilities. I have seen that 2.52.0 has been released, but I have not had time to review it.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user376134Senior Automation Test Developer/Automation Test Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Report as inappropriate

Nov 13, 2017

I upgraded our selenium to 3 and chromedriver is working fine but gecko driver 0.19. So I downgraded to 0.17, the issues gone.

See all 2 comments

it_user373731

Software Engineering Intern at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Feb 9, 2016

Download

There were no issues with the stability.

Pros and Cons

"They are working on a new product which gives you an opportunity to test your product with different browsers at the same time."

"The free option is very limited, but the pay version is expensive."

Valuable Features

They are working on a new product which gives you an opportunity to test your product with different browsers at the same time.

Room for Improvement

They pay version is expensive, and I found it difficulot to implement.

Use of Solution

I used the free trial for 14 days.

Deployment Issues

There were no issues with the deployment.

Stability Issues

There were no issues with the stability.

Scalability Issues

There were no issues with the scalability.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

10/10

Technical Support:

7/10

Initial Setup

At the beginning, it was difficult to implement then it works.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

The free option is very limited, but the pay version is expensive.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Buyer's Guide

Selenium HQ

May 2026

Free Report: Selenium HQ Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Selenium HQ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

900,277 professionals have used our research since 2012.

it_user371355

Senior Director, Software Development and Testing at Softcrylic

Jan 26, 2016

Download

It gives us the ability to execute tests in parallel which provides time savings for testing.

Pros and Cons

"Our clients have realized benefits by reducing their testing cycle from three days to three hours through Selenium."

"They can improve test reporting, and more importantly on test scripts, by providing less constructs to automate more complex testing scenarios."

Valuable Features

Automate test across several browsers such as IE, Chrome, Firefox and Safari
Write automation scripts in any language of your choice Java, C#, PHP, Python and many more
Ability to execute tests in parallel which provide time saving for testing
Ability to take screenshots of every tests
An open API that can be extended based on our needs
A Recorder Tool to record tests and execute them for non-developers

Improvements to My Organization

We provide IT services and solutions, and this solution helped our clients reduce their manual testing efforts to greater level. Our clients have realized benefits by reducing their testing cycle from three days to three hours through Selenium.

Room for Improvement

They can improve test reporting, and more importantly on test scripts, by providing less constructs to automate more complex testing scenarios.

Use of Solution

I've used it for the past nine years. We use it alongside Appium.

Deployment Issues

Deployment is little tricky but with good help from external vendors organizations, can implement a Selenium based test automation solution in a short period of time.

Stability Issues

There have been no issues with the stability.

Scalability Issues

There have been no issues with the scalability.

Customer Service and Technical Support

There is great on-line support from the users community. External vendors have innovative solutions build using these tools where they provide tremendous support.

Initial Setup

It was difficult to some extent, but with good documentation from the on-line community we where able to implement the tool.

Implementation Team

We did it in-house. If you are implementing it for enterprise level its better to seek external vendor help.

ROI

We have seen ROI of more than 60%. It's open source.

Other Advice

I would say start lean, gain small wins and incrementally add more. Example: Start automating test cases for one browser and slow expand to multiple browsers.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user374013

Associate Architect -Test Automation with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 21, 2016

Download

It's language and environment compatible.

Pros and Cons

"We designed the Omani-channel automation framework, and achieved the maximum testing coverage includes localization (approximately 19), environment (web and mobile [iOS and Android]), and browser."

"I observed like batch execution issues and comparability issues like AngularJS app's etc."

What is most valuable?

Browser
Language and environment compatible
Opensource

How has it helped my organization?

We designed the Omani-channel automation framework, and achieved the maximum testing coverage includes localization (approximately 19), environment (web and mobile [iOS and Android]), and browser.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see an improvement in the iOS automation for hybrid app's and try to comparable for desktop app automation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for six years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There were no issues with the deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I observed like batch execution issues and comparability issues like AngularJS app's etc.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were no issues with the scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

8/10 - they need to improve their in-office blog.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Used other is solutions for my assignments, and more opensource ones.

How was the initial setup?

It's simple to set-up.

What about the implementation team?

We did it in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's open-source so it's free.

What other advice do I have?

You'll be good to go with this.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. We are secondary sponsors.

it_user373947

QA Manager at a retailer with 501-1,000 employees

Jan 21, 2016

Download

The cross browser testing functionality helped us to find issues quicker in specific browsers.

Pros and Cons

"It saves us lot of time and cost once implemented."

"I had issues testing a flash application with Selenium Webdriver."

What is most valuable?

Automate any web page by providing URL
One can use any programming language such as Ruby, Java, Python and few others
Support for several types of locators
Cross browser support

How has it helped my organization?

We run automated test cases after every deployment. The product helped us to implement continuous integration and worry free deployment process.

What needs improvement?

I had issues testing a flash application with Selenium Webdriver.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for five years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There were no issues with the deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There have been no issues with the stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There have been no issues with the scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

It is an open source product with a strong user base and lot of user community support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have briefly used QTP. There are a few reasons.It is an open-source tool and it has cross browser support. Testers can run automated test cases in different browser, and QA engineers can write test cases in his/her choice of language such as Java, Ruby, Python and a few others.

How was the initial setup?

The set up is straightforward if you have a programming background.

What was our ROI?

It is an open source tool but price in terms of time it is totally worth it. It saves us lot of time and cost once implemented. The cross browser testing functionality helped us to find issues quicker in specific browsers.

What other advice do I have?

The product has record and play back tool but it is always better to write your own code and implement the framework.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user376134Senior Automation Test Developer/Automation Test Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Report as inappropriate

Jan 5, 2017

Jenkins is free and it has so many plugins even.
I experienced 2 migrations to Jenkins from TeamCity and CircleCI because of the growing automation needs.
(Sorry, I wanted to post this comment in the Build tools area. And it seems I cannot delete this comment now.)

it_user177897

QA Expert at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jan 20, 2016

Download

It provides us simple objects recognition and multi-language support.

Pros and Cons

"It covers all regression testing with 20,000 test cases run during 24 hours and easy maintenance."

"Selenium IDE needs to be improved not like just a record / play back tool, but as an effective web elements spy."

What is most valuable?

Simple objects recognition
It's easy to use
Multi-language support
Open source with good support
A lot of information and help online

What needs improvement?

Selenium IDE needs to be improved not like just an record / play back tool, but as effective web elements spy. TestNG has more support, and also has ntegration with Appium and Jmeter which Selenium misses.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for 10 years, since 2005.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Throughout the last five years, I have not had any difficulty to install or set-up Webdriver.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is an open source, so some issues are always pop[ing up , but compared to other open source automation tools web driver is much much better.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It covers all regression testing with 20,000 test cases run during 24 hours and easy maintenance.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer support is very good for a non-commercial tool.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I used Silk Test and Win Runner previously. Borland SilkTest is an excellent tool, but it costs.

How was the initial setup?

It very straight forward and easy. Of course it’s required basic programming skills.

What about the implementation team?

We have in house automation framework and it works great with continuous integration. I do not see reasons to pay for third party services.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's a free tool.

What other advice do I have?

Just use web driver and enjoy.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user360246

Test Automation Engineer at a security firm with 51-200 employees

Jan 20, 2016

Download

The parallel batch execution as well as reporting feature in the tests are very valuable to me.

Pros and Cons

"The parallel batch execution as well as reporting feature in the tests are very valuable to me."

What is most valuable?

The parallel batch execution as well as reporting feature in the tests are very valuable to me.

How has it helped my organization?

We are using this product to do regression testing. In this way it has improved the quality of our product.

What needs improvement?

As of now I can't see anything which needs to be improved but once I am through with Selenium, will let you know.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for one year and two months.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

I have not had any issues with the deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not had any issues with the stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not had any issues with the scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

It's an open source tool. So the only support is Google for us.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

This product is more user friendly than others. So this is the reason for choosing this product.

How was the initial setup?

The set-up was straightforward.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user373083

QA Test Lead at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jan 20, 2016

Download

CI can be achieved with tools like Jenkins. Like QTP, there should be an option to run the test from a point or state of application.

Pros and Cons

"An engineer from any background can learn and build automation easily."

"Dynamic debugging needs to be improved. Like QTP, there should be an option to run the test from a point or state of application."

What is most valuable?

It supports many programming languages like Java, and Ruby etc.
It can be plugged with Junit, TestNG and other Java frameworks for reporting
CI can be achieved with tools like Jenkins

How has it helped my organization?

Cost effective solution for automation test.

What needs improvement?

Dynamic Debugging needs to be improved. Like QTP, there should be an option to run the test from a point or state of application. Currently the test should be run from the beginning to debug or test the new scenario which has been added.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for three years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There were no issues with the deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There are stability issues, especially when Mozilla Firefox updates.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There's no scalability issues.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

It wasn't very difficult.

What was our ROI?

We did it in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's free and there's no licence needed.

What other advice do I have?

An engineer from any background can learn and build automation easily.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user373041

QA Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jan 20, 2016

Download

Building an automation framework can be used easily across teams with minimal training.

Pros and Cons

"Selenium Webdriver has streamlined the entire quality assurance process in our organization."

"Selenium only supports web based applications and it is not suitable for testing small sized products which can be easily tested manually."

Valuable Features:

Selenium is an open source automation tool founded in 2004 by Jason Huggins used widely for functional testing of web based applications. It supports multiple languages and browsers which gives it the versatility. Users can develop their automation framework in the language of their choice and test their product across various browsers. The most vital feature of Selenium Webdriver is, that it allows report generation with the help of TestNG.

Improvements to My Organization:

Selenium Webdriver has streamlined the entire quality assurance process in our organization. As the regression suites run more frequently than before bugs are reported to developers at a faster rate which has in turn helped in attaining a rapid stability of the product. Alongside these automation scripts can be used to validate the functionality across various browsers and platforms which reduces time and effort considerably.

Room for Improvement:

In the future releases I would like to see a support for testing images in web applications and a provision for identifying captcha.

Deployment Issues:

There were no issues with deployment.

Stability Issues:

There were no issues with the stability.

Scalability Issues:

There are no issues with its scalability.

Other Advice:

Implementing an automation tool for Quality assurance has become the latest trend in many organisations.

The biggest challenge is to identify whether there is really a need for an automation tool. Incorporating automation requires a robust product which undergoes minimal changes during its lifetime otherwise the automation scripts would require constant change.
Selenium only supports web based applications and it is not suitable for testing small sized products which can be easily tested manually. The effort in incorporating an automation framework would be larger than testing it manually.
User should have good knowledge of any of the programming languages supported like Java, C#, Ruby / Python to build an automation framework.
Building an automation framework can be used easily across team with minimal training.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user372603

Senior Automation QA, Automation Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Jan 20, 2016

Download

It allows us to write frameworks using object-oriented programming languages like Java.

Pros and Cons

"Compared to commercial tools such as TestComplete, Selenium WebDriver is a better choice for web auto-testing."

"Maybe more stable cross-browser autotesting (sometimes a test which works ok for one browser fails in another)."

Valuable Features

This is open-source product with large community, it allows to use your favourite language to write test framework.

Improvements to My Organization

Selenium is an automation tool which allows to perform automation web testing and reduce amount of manual tests.

Room for Improvement

Maybe more stable cross-browser autotesting (some times test which works ok for one browser fails in another).

Use of Solution

I've used it for over four years.

Deployment Issues

There were no issues with the deployment.

Stability Issues

Sometimes there are issues with automation testing in Internet Explorer.

Scalability Issues

There's no issues with the scalability.

Customer Service and Technical Support

This is open source product with large community, the main issues can be solved using this community

Initial Setup

To use Selenium WebDriver effectively you should have good knowledge of programming language, this is one of the main complexity

Other Advice

To use Selenium WebDriver effectively user should have good knowledge of programming language, this is one of the main complexity. Using Selenium you have to write test framework using your favourite language and some additional tools should be used also (like Jenkins for CI and reports), this is the first step which should be done.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.