it_user372603 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Automation QA, Automation Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
It allows us to write frameworks using object-oriented programming languages like Java.

What is most valuable?

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

How has it helped my organization?

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

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for over four years.

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Selenium HQ
March 2024
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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?

Sometimes there are issues with automation testing in Internet Explorer.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There's no issues with the scalability.

How are customer service and support?

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

How was the initial setup?

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Compared to commercial tools such as TestComplete, Selenium WebDriver is a better choice for web auto-testing. It allows us to write frameworks using object-oriented programming languages like Java.

What other advice do I have?

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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Selenium Test lead automation engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
​I can run a set of regression test cases with every release to QA.

What is most valuable?

I can easily integrate with TestNG and Maven. Also I am able to set servers and hubs to execute my test case against

How has it helped my organization?

I can run a set of regression test cases with every release to QA.

What needs improvement?

I would like to be able to capture HTML header information but I have not been able to do that yet

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 during deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Currently WebDriver is having issues running against the latest of Firefox.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There have been no issues scaling it out.

How are customer service and technical support?

There is none yet there is a lot sites where questions can answered.

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

I used Capybara. I am more familiar with Java

How was the initial setup?

It was pretty straightforward. It needs some degree of programming knowledge.

What about the implementation team?

We did it in-house.

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

It's free.

What other advice do I have?

Go for it. This is one of the best open source solutions I know of.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Selenium HQ
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Selenium HQ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Software Test Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Real User
Open source and compatible with multiple languages, but lacks support for Windows desktop applications
Pros and Cons
  • "It is compatible with and supports multiple languages, such as Java and Python. It is open source, and it is widely used."
  • "It is not a licensed tool. The problem with that is that it won't be able to support Windows desktop applications. There is no support for Windows desktop applications. They can do something about it. Its user interface can also be improved, which is not great compared to the other latest tools. Anybody who has been working on functional testing or manual testing cannot directly work on Selenium HQ without learning programming skills, which is a disadvantage."

What is most valuable?

It is compatible with and supports multiple languages, such as Java and Python. It is open source, and it is widely used.

What needs improvement?

It is not a licensed tool. The problem with that is that it won't be able to support Windows desktop applications. There is no support for Windows desktop applications. They can do something about it.

Its user interface can also be improved, which is not great compared to the other latest tools.

Anybody who has been working on functional testing or manual testing cannot directly work on Selenium HQ without learning programming skills, which is a disadvantage.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Selenium HQ for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has good stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is good. They are improving on that.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't directly interacted with anyone. For most of the questions that I have, I search online, and I am able to find the answers in the community.

How was the initial setup?

It is complex, but they have detailed documentation, which is helpful.

What other advice do I have?

You need a person who knows one programming language thoroughly. It is not like anybody can pick and work on this solution. You should be thorough enough on the language and the framework that you are choosing. Only then Selenium HQ is the way to go.

I would rate Selenium HQ a seven out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Senior Automation Test Developer/Automation Test Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
BrowserStack and Sauce Labs work with it. It also can work with most of programming languages.
Pros and Cons
  • "It supports most of the mainstream browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, IE and etc."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to make our UI functional tests, layout test, and any tests related to the browsers.

How has it helped my organization?

  1. We have automation tests (API, UI, unit, integration tests, and etc.). It saves on our manual QA time.
  2. It reduces our manual QA repeatable works.
  3. It saves our manual QA's energy.
  4. The QA time move from manual QA to automation QA, and improve the relationship between developer and QA, Since automation tests make them work closer.
  5. 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.
  6. QA know more about tests such as unit tests, integration tests, and Selenium UI tests.
  7. Make QA life much fun/easier.
  8. Deduce the developers work such as automation QA/developer develops the test library and test framework, both developer and QA, some times, PM also can develop their own tests by using the test library and test framework.

What is most valuable?

  1. Selenium is a good tool to do UI testing
  2. It works with many popular programming languages such as Java, JavaScript and etc.
  3. It supports most of the mainstream browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, IE and etc.
  4. It supports mobile local application as well and work with Appium.
  5. It is free.
  6. Selenium grid is a wonderful tool.
  7. BrowserStack and Sauce Labs work with Selenium.
  8. Headless browser, such as Xvfb and PhantomJS, can work with Selenium as well.
  9. Selenium works with CI system such as TeamCity, Jenkins, and CircleCI.
  10. Selenium can work with most programming languages. I use Java more as I am really comfortable using it.
  11. I do not use Selenium IDE, but it can help the beginner to learn how to find the elements by XPath, CSS selector, and etc.
  12. New geckodriver in new version of Selenium.
  13. It is able to work with Galen test framework to do layout test.

What needs improvement?

  1. Stability.
  2. Documentation, the Java doc description for most of the API is almost empty. No example with no detail.
  3. 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.
  4. Java gets a lot of supports. Python as well. However, it seems not PHP. It is amazing, and Selenium can work with a lot of programming languages.
  5. Firefox IDE tool needs to be improved.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Some times with timeout issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

When your tests number increases, driver manager and Selenium Grid performance become important.

How was the initial setup?

There are a lot of test frameworks that support Selenium.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user376134 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user376134Senior Automation Test Developer/Automation Test Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User

It depends on which type of the windows dialog:
If it is a new browser dialog, selenium is able to click the button on that dialog by using switch windows method because your main window is window 1, then selenium opened a new one(the windows dialog) is window 2, switch to window 2 and click whatever you want.

If it is a modal, you can just directly operate that, since it is in the same window/browser.

Selenium test is not really a blackbox tests, if you know the front-end code of the application under testing, that would help you to choose correct selenium API to do that.

And also you can use
JavascriptExecutor js = (JavascriptExecutor)driver;
js.executeScript("arguments[0].click();",
It is working for some cases too. It is still depends on the front-end code.

For your case, if it is a File download dialog window, I assume there is only "yes" and "no" button on it.

If it is an authentication window which requires you to enter "username" and "password", you may change your url to this way: driver.get("http://$username:$password@$yourURL")

See all 2 comments
PeerSpot user
Technical Lead at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
​It supports most of the actions that a user would do on a website.​​
Pros and Cons
  • "It supports most of the actions that a user would do on a website."
  • "There are stability issues with Internet Explorer only."

What is most valuable?

It supports most of the actions that a user would do on a website.

How has it helped my organization?

Automates more than 5000 test cases and takes around 30-36 hours by which it reduces the manual effort of one QA person in 20-25 days.

What needs improvement?

More than 2 Years

For how long have I used the solution?

More than 2 Years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes, with Internet Explorer only.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

So far, No.

How is customer service and technical support?

There are large forums available and their support staff were awesome.

How was the initial setup?

Straightforward. But I would say the complexity will depend on the framework you create.

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

It's free!

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, Sahi Pro was on the list.

What other advice do I have?

The tool supports most of the features you want to automate and the stability of the executions is good too. And finally, it's free!

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user395031 - PeerSpot reviewer
Selenium Specialist at BrowserStack
Vendor
It makes life easy when it comes to writing test cases.​

What is most valuable?

The whole code is available on the internet. This gives potential users the ability to modify the code as per their use case. It automates the entire manual testing process reducing testing time drastically. For instance, during my internship, we automated the entire Sanity and Regression testing suite and bought down the total testing time from one hour to five minutes.

How has it helped my organization?

Selenium has two uses in my company. Firstly, our QA team uses Selenium to automate their tests. Secondly, our product BrowserStack Automate is based over Selenium and lets you run any Selenium script on different browser and OS combinations.

What needs improvement?

Primarily there are improvements I can suggest:

  • Its does not support AJAX requests
  • It is not optimized for testing on mobile devices

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working as a Selenium Specialist at BrowserStack for the past 20 months. I answer any Selenium related emails that our customers send us. Previously, I had used Selenium during my Internship at TCS.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployment is not applicable to Selenium.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Selenium is pretty stable, if not 100%.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is certainly possible. Selenium server can handle multiple tests running in parallel.

How are customer service and technical support?

Working as Selenium tech support for BrowserStack, I wouldn’t be able to rate myself. However, the software being open source, the help on the internet is immense.

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

I haven't had to use any other products.

How was the initial setup?

You need a basic understanding of the any particular language such as Java, C#, PHP to get started with Selenium. If yes, getting started with Selenium is pretty easy. Takes less than an half an hour to get started.

What about the implementation team?

I have tried it myself. As I mentioned, a lot of resources are available on the internet regarding different approaches to use Selenium.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

It’s open source and free.

What other advice do I have?

There's nothing much to complain about Selenium, barring a few shortcomings. The Selenium IDE plugin – http://www.seleniumhq.org/projects/ide/, records your clicks and you can export this recorded test case to code in Java, C# etc. Though the converted code is not entirely stable, it certainly makes life easy when it comes to writing test cases.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user347715 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Automation Specialist with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
It's provided shorter testing cycles, and saves a lot of time and mental health for manual testers, but it needs better stability for Internet Explorer.

Valuable Features

It's open source, free, stable, and easy to use. It's the best solution on the market.

Improvements to My Organization

It's provided shorter testing cycles, and saves a lot of time and mental health for manual testers. It helps with performing scheduled builds, and automatically generated test reports, etc.

Room for Improvement

I'd like to be able to perform stability for tests on Internet Explorer.

Use of Solution

We've used it for over one and a half years. We're running web test automation using Java language, and the Selenium library with the latest web drivers, alongside TestNG for managing test flow. We have Gradle for building and dependency management and Jenkins as CI tool. Tests are built and run on virtual machines (no remote driver).

Stability Issues

The stability is a concern. Internet Explorer tests take three times longer to run and are a lot less stable than those run on Chrome, for example.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

I haven't contacted them.

Technical Support:

I haven't contacted them.

Initial Setup

It took some time. I had to create, wrap and decorate a lot of its functionality.

Implementation Team

It was done in-house.

Other Solutions Considered

We tried HP UFT, but did did not like the speed, and IDE. Also, there was no choice of programming language, it's not free, and a lot harder to maintain.

Other Advice

The library is nicely done. The webdriver communication with the browser is not perfect, though, especially IE. The longer the test is the higher the chance it will break down. It's impossible to reach 100% stability with more complicated tests. Very likely that the problem lies within Internet Explorer, not within the webdriver.

Very good for testers with programming experience and web developers, not so much for regular testers, unless they are given a “ready” framework and shown how to write tests.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user335340 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user335340Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant

We are using it for running web test automation using Java language, and the Selenium library with the latest web drivers, alongside Tests are built and run on virtual machines (no remote driver). This is faster and very good tool.

it_user324075 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder & CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Web applications functional test automation tool suite with ability integrate with many programming languages

Valuable Features:

  • Supports many scripting languages (Java, .NET, Php etc)
  • Great functional testing tool with short learning curve, and this makes it easy for someone coming from programming background
  • Supports multiple web browsers/OS
  • Distributed (remote) testing

Improvements to My Organization:

Selenium is not just a one tool. It has a collection of tools.Selenium IDE can be used for creating the smoke tests quickly. Then export the test cases to your favorite programming language and run against different browsers. Once test cases are exported to the programming language the power of target language can be used to improve the tests further (e.g reporting , db connection etc)

Room for Improvement:

Integrating test reporting with WebDriver directly

Support for major browsers directly.

Other Advice:

If you don’t have a budget, go with Selenium because it has a huge community and the versions are constantly updated. Also, it supports latest browers most of the time, and major competitors are using it. It’s reliable and extendable. When it comes to performance testing, you can use the same code for both Selenium and JMeter.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Selenium HQ Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Selenium HQ Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.