6. Selenium Tools: A fight for Supremacy

Just like us testers fighting for supremacy among the lot, Selenium Tools have also been in a very similar battle in order to prove themselves, the best! Let’s see what exactly is going amidst them…

Selenium IDE – The All-Time Leader especially for Selenium beginners

• It has been boasting that Selenium IDE is the simplest framework in the whole available suite and it has all rights to do so. It is the easiest one to learn as well.
• No programming experience is required (minimal knowledge on HTML would be appreciated though!)
• Very easy to install and start some action.
• Simple record and playback tool.
• Used as a plug-in and works only with Mozilla Firefox.
• Provides a good support for extensions.
• Helps in exporting tests that can be executed in Selenium RC and WebDriver.

Selenium RC – The Superman of the series

• Cross-browser and cross-platform testing became a reality with its introduction.
• Supports languages such as C#, Java, Ruby, Python, Perl and PHP and hence needs programming experience.
• Selenium RC server should be running to execute the test cases.
• It has an easy and small API.
• Allows us to perform looping and conditional operations.
• Supports data-driven testing.

WebDriver – The Ruling Champ!

• Supports cross-browser and cross-platform just like Selenium RC.
• Interacts natively with the browsers and hence it is faster than Selenium IDE and Selenium RC.
• A concise API – making our life easier.
• Also supports an invisible browser, HtmlUnit.
• Supports testing of iPhone and Android applications as well.

Selenium Grid – I-Am-There-For-You Champ

It is now built into sever itself, so it can be called “Selenium Server Grid Mode”. When you have to run multiple tests at once and you are worried, Selenium Grid comes to your rescue saying I-Am-There-For-You!

• Uses a node-hub concept.
• Helps simultaneous execution of tests.
• Supports multiple browsers and platforms.
• Hence saves huge amount of valuable time.

All these can turn any dreary testing day into one full of opportunities and sunshine.

Doesn’t it make you want to take a “Selenium” pill at least once every morning as soon as office hours begin? Depending on the application under test, client requirements and available timelines, one of the above tools can be chosen for automation.

Game on!