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ReadyAPI vs Selenium HQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

ReadyAPI
Ranking in Functional Testing Tools
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (7th)
Selenium HQ
Ranking in Functional Testing Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Functional Testing Tools category, the mindshare of ReadyAPI is 1.2%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Selenium HQ is 3.7%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Functional Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

SandeepSingh9 - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows you to parameterize in one place for the changes to reflect everywhere and lets you customize the environment, but its load testing feature needs improvement, and costs need to be cheaper
One of the features of ReadyAPI that's worth mentioning is that it allows you to parameterize. I'm working with more than two hundred resources, so I don't have to go and make a small change at each point every time. I have the option to just parameterize in one place for the changes to reflect everywhere. Another valuable feature of ReadyAPI is that it provides a customized environment. In my company, you work in different environments, such as QA, UAT, and LT, so the URLs for every environment are different. In ReadyAPI, you can customize your environment, set it up, then start working on it. Another feature worth mentioning that's offered in ReadyAPI is automating your test value as the tool allows Groovy scripting. In your test case, you can use a Groovy script that says that in a particular test case, you have ten resources, but you just want to exhibit five and that you don't want to exhibit the remaining five. You can write a small Groovy script that lets you execute just five resources out of the ten resources. I also like that ReadyAPI allows you to read the data from CFC and Excel. It also allows you to create or customize your data, but that only works at a certain point because every application has its specific data. ReadyAPI cannot generate every data, but when I'm posting and I want to generate a random name, such as a first name, I can do it in ReadyAPI. The tool also has many different features which I find valuable, including Git integration.
Anil Kumar Shrestha - PeerSpot reviewer
An open-source solution that integrates with every programming language and library
What I like best about it is that it can automate everything on the front end with the help of other frameworks. The community worldwide provides support for any issues. Plus, it’s open-source, which is a big advantage. The solution integrates with every programming language and library and is very easy to use. It has a simple syntax, and the documentation on the website makes it straightforward to learn and implement.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of ReadyAPI are the scripting tools and the connectivity to external data sources, such as Excel and PDF files. There are plenty of useful features that are useful, such as automating flexibility and usability. Overall, the solution is easy to use."
"A single platform for functional testing, load testing security, and service actualization."
"The most valuable feature is being able to run each version for test suites."
"For anyone who does not have experience with automation, ReadyAPI provides a sense of comfort, especially for testers who find it hard to go directly into coding."
"When we are doing API testing we have found it to be very efficient to receive results. Additionally, you are able to do tests directly from the API."
"Technical support from SmartBear is commendable."
"ReadyAPI's best features are user-friendliness, smooth integration with Postman, the speed of creating test cases, and integration with customer data."
"It can create stress tests very fast, and some features help you do it fast."
"The most valuable features of Selenium HQ are that it is free and allows using any programming language."
"It supports most of the actions that a user would do on a website."
"Selenium web driver - Java."
"Selenium WebDriver and Selenium IDE are useful."
"I am impressed with the product's ability to catch content from website."
"You can build your own framework. I think that's the most powerful feature. You can connect with a lot of other tools that use frameworks, or keywords, etc. That helps make it a stronger solution."
"It supports most of the mainstream browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, IE and etc."
"Selenium HQ's most valuable feature is picking up and entering values from web pages."
 

Cons

"ReadyAPI's customer support isn't that great, particularly their response time."
"To generate a test suite in API, I had to create a separate one each time because otherwise it was just override the test. Each API had to be added separately. I thought I could just have one and then create different methods, but I had to add each API separately to create the test for that. That is an area that could be improved."
"Areas for improvement include the security files, endpoints, and process sessions."
"They have performance testing also. However, it's not that great."
"It doesn't have connectors to the NoSQL database. This is one of the things where they do not have a very solid strategy today. Other solutions have an in-built mechanism where I can directly and easily connect. An API is more around a user submitting a request on the frontend. It then hits the backend, puts the data, and responds back. If I am hitting MongoDB or NoSQL databases, I do not have ready-made inbuilt solutions in ReadyAPI that can easily help me in automating it faster. In our organization, we deal with NoSQL databases, and therefore, we need Groovy. We just cannot have a connector from ReadyAPI to do that. I have to write Groovy scripts. If you have themes that are predominantly using MongoDB, it leads to more maintenance and support activity because we are introducing more code into our commission. In terms of additional features, it can have cloud support. This is one of the things where we are getting into cloud support. We'll see how it works, but it is one of the doubts that we still have."
"In terms of features, I have already raised different change requests on the ReadyAPI side. One of the largest functions I've requested is the validation of the payload for the REST APIs."
"The UI is not user-friendly."
"There is a lot of room for improvement, mainly from the point of view of integrating ReadyAPI into the CI pipelines, and also the scripting aspect into Bitbucket."
"Selenium could offer better ways to record and create scripts. IDE is available, however, it can be improved."
"Coding skills are required to use Selenium, so it could be made more user-friendly for non-programmers."
"In the beginning, we had issues with several test cases failing during regression. Over a period of time, we built our own framework around Selenium which helped us overcome of these issues."
"Selenium HQ doesn't have any self-healing capabilities."
"It does require a programming skill set. I would like the product not to require a heavy programming skill set and be more user-friendly for someone without a programming background."
"Improvement in Selenium's ability to identify and wait for the page/element to load would be a big plus. This would ensure that our failed test cases will drop by 60%."
"The solution's UI path needs to be modernized."
"The latest versions are often unstable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay $3,000 annually for a floating license. actually. That allows another person from my company to use it as well. It's a cloud-based license."
"The price was around $6,000 for one license, but I don't remember exactly. It is definitely expensive. Our organization was planning on having multiple licenses for this year."
"We use fixed licenses, and the last time I checked, I want to say it's around $680 per seat per year."
"For each license, they charge the same amount, which is less than $1,000 for each desktop license."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"The price of the solution has been fine."
"If I remember correctly, ReadyAPI costs between $5,000 to $7,000 for five thousand virtual users running it at a given point in time. Other tools, for example, Apache JMeter, can run millions of users at a given time. ReadyAPI is a tool that requires you to pay more money if you want more users to run it for performance testing. For functional testing, each ReadyAPI license costs $1,000, and you do get basic testing, and it's inclusive of one hundred users. In my company, if there's a need for more than one hundred users, my team uses Apache JMeter because it's futile to end up paying $5,000 or $6,000 annually just for performance testing, which can be done in Apache JMeter as well. Given the circumstances, my team does performance testing only towards the end of the fiscal year when the regulatory testing of applications takes place. If I have to run ReadyAPI just for two days or just for ten or fifteen odd days, then it's not worth paying $5,000 for the license with the small number of users provided by ReadyAPI."
"The thing with ReadyAPI is that you have to buy different licenses for different purposes."
"Selenium HQ is open source and our use of it in our company is provided for free."
"It is all free."
"Since it is an open source. It is free to use. However my company see it as the future of load testing."
"The solution is open source."
"It's open-source, so it's free."
"It is an open-source tool."
"The setup cost is open source or free."
"Currently, Selenium HQ is free for customers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ReadyAPI?
The performance testing capabilities are very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ReadyAPI?
Currently, we don't extensively use the performance testing due to license costs. License prices can be a factor in considering which technologies to adopt.
What needs improvement with ReadyAPI?
In native teams and cloud environments, there is room for improvement. I'm considering the use of AWS and its Lambda functionalities prepared by the vendor. These are more so points from my wishlis...
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 do you like most about Selenium HQ?
Selenium's open-source nature is a key advantage. Its extensive support for diverse web technologies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Selenium HQ?
Selenium is easy to install and mostly free, so there's no need for a license. This lack of costs makes it an attractive option.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Ready API
SeleniumHQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Healthcare Data Solutions (HDS)
BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, experitest, Tricentis GmbH, SmartBear Software
Find out what your peers are saying about ReadyAPI vs. Selenium HQ and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.