We have a lot of information that we are putting on different websites and social media platforms because we need to inform our social network users about what we are doing, what we are planning to do, and what was done. Sometimes, it's information which is the same, or it's the same on different websites, in different web software, and so on. I am using Selenium mostly for this purpose.
Managing Partner at Business Dialog
A stable and scalable browser-based regression automation suite, but it would be better if it was more user-friendly for business users
Pros and Cons
- "I like its simplicity."
- "It would be better if it accommodated non-techy end-users. I think it's still a product for developers. That's why it's not common for end-users, and especially for RPA activities or tasks. It's hard to automate tasks for end-users. If it will be easier, more user-friendly, and so on, perhaps it can be more interesting for this kind of user."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I like its simplicity.
What needs improvement?
It would be better if it accommodated non-techy end-users. I think it's still a product for developers. That's why it's not common for end-users, and especially for RPA activities or tasks. It's hard to automate tasks for end-users. If it will be easier, more user-friendly, and so on, perhaps it can be more interesting for this kind of user.
The second thing, when you are working in IT, you know about such tools. But if you are on the business side, you don't have much information at all.
I would like to see easy onboarding with training for end-users. Because there is a lot of stuff for developers, but for end-users, I would say none or approximately none.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Selenium HQ for five years.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I didn't have problems with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I didn't have problems with scalability.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is complex. I think some changes were done, but it's still too complicated for end-users.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise potential users to contact their IT guys because they will have a problem setting up the first automation. Of course, if there are people like me who want to develop their own knowledge, I would say they need time to get to know how to use it, optimize the process, etc.
But if not, it will be easier for end-users to start with some kind of RPA offering by different vendors because they have their tools prepared for the end-users, for onboarding, and so on.
Because these open-source tools are still tools made for developers and IT guys, not for end-user.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Selenium HQ a six.
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.
Head of Digital Transformation at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Helps with critical deployments and test automation of web
Pros and Cons
- "I am impressed with the product's ability to catch content from website."
- "I have found that at times the tool does not catch the class features of website content correctly. The product's AWS configuration is also hard."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for the test automation of web solutions. It also helps us to create web browsers.
How has it helped my organization?
My company uses the solution for critical deployments.
What is most valuable?
I am impressed with the product's ability to catch content from website.
What needs improvement?
I have found that at times the tool does not catch the class features of website content correctly. The product's AWS configuration is also hard.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the tool for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The tool is stable but needs to update to the new version of Chrome.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the product's scalability an eight out of ten. My company has 2000 users for the solution.
How are customer service and support?
I have never used support. I would search on the internet for tutorials.
How was the initial setup?
The solution's setup is easy in the local environment but complex on the server side. You need to also update the Chrome version in the cloud before setting it up in the local environment.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate the product an eight out of ten. The product is easy to use.
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Selenium HQ
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Selenium HQ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Project Lead at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has good remote server features and an easy implementation
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is very easy to implement."
- "The login could be improved, to obviate the need for relying on another one for integration with Selenium HQ"
What is our primary use case?
We employ the version of the solution with the most ease of use, based on a search we conducted five or six years back. We now have a new client who likes the approach we used with a different one. We have a script to download the latest version, integrate it with the regression suite and then run it. Our current and previous clients equally approve of this approach. We make certain to utilize the latest version even when conducting tests during the development stage, as we find it easy to work with.
What is most valuable?
Remote server execution is a feature we find most valuable. We make use of Selenium Grid as concerns parallel execution. We also find the ordinary features of Selenium Grid to be valuable, 90 percent of our purchases comprising UI and 10 percent back-end.
What needs improvement?
In the past, we had difficulty with screenshots, but this has been remedied. We feel that all the current solutions are usable and the providers are helpful.
This said, the login could be improved, to obviate the need for relying on another one for integration with Selenium HQ. It would be nice if the solution provided an internal login system, one which would allow us to easily debug it. Until such time as a login system will be added from the vendor application, it will not be possible to identify the exact cause of a potential failure, unless there should be an interaction with, say, the UI element. Selenium HQ currently allows for an exception should an element be stale, not be found, or intractable.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Selenium HQ since 2007.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. I always suggest Selenium, even when conducting internal training. As I consider this to be a better solution than that offered by the competition and one which works, I do the same with my team. I always advocate on behalf of the ease of integration of Selenium HQ.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have not made use of Selenium HQ’s technical support. We belong to a forum site that we joined some time ago while looking for help in finding an integration solution on the pipeline side. We were able to obtain all the information we needed from the Selenium HQ forum. Meaning, there was no need to contact anyone else with our frequent questions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of the deployment cycle and the process of onboarding users takes an average of 10-15 minutes. This is the length of time it takes for us to set up in our pipeline the data repositories for the regression suite, and, subsequently, integrate the data with Selenium HQ, which is the point at which we run it.
What other advice do I have?
We implement the solution for our clients, not simply resell it.
The solution is very easy to implement. The first step which must be done is to go through the documentation on the site. I feel the solution to be pretty straightforward and people are drawn to it by its ease of use. There is always help available on the web for integration or implementation issues.
I rate Selenium HQ as an eight 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.
Quality Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The primary benefit is its cost and the ability to use the cloud
Pros and Cons
- "The primary benefit is its cost and the ability to use the cloud."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
We are using mobile application and functional testing. It performs pretty well.
We are using Selenium for scripting. We use Sauce Labs for the hardware device coverage on the client side.
How has it helped my organization?
The primary benefit is its cost and the ability to use the cloud.
We use it with Sauce Labs. So, we have a large base of real devices and emulators, as well as breadth of coverage.
What is most valuable?
- Flexibility
- Scalability
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
So far, I have not have any issues with its stability.
How is customer service and technical support?
Technical support is one of the downsides of it. When you are buying a commercial tool from a vendor, your technical support is readily available but you are paying for it. However, they're going to take care of you. When you're dealing with open source, your support is based on research that you can do on the Internet. You rely on somebody else having had the same experience or one of the developers of the code having put something out there on the subject.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This product is open source and free. That was a huge deciding factor for us getting into it.
What other advice do I have?
I don’t see it as a company spending money on anything. I like to keep up with the market because I built my career around test automation.
Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:
- Ease of implementation
- Ease of adaptability
- How much skill set would be required to operate it. Can I take somebody with no programming background and get them up and running on it, or does it require a heavy-duty programming background?
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
QA Test Lead at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Provides Freedom To Choose The Tools Needed For Full-Fledged Automation Framework
Pros and Cons
- "The ability to present your tests on a wiki page and hooking them up to the scripts/fixtures."
- "Selenium could offer better ways to record and create scripts. IDE is available, however, it can be improved."
What is most valuable?
FitNesse: The ability to present your tests on a wiki page and hooking them up to the scripts/fixtures. This is an amazing feature as you could literally ask your product owner, business analysts/developers to go to wiki and see all tests that are written and running automatically. Using the Gherkin format this can be very user readable, and one can also run those tests from the wiki themselves. They can even write their own tests using the available functions. Can easily be connected to Jenkins as well.
Selenium: The part with Selenium I like the most is the ability to parse and select an element from DOM. The various selectors make the job easier! At the same time one has to be careful of the selectors one uses, as it can make performance inefficient. With Selenium, one has a lot of freedom to choose the rest of the tools needed to make a full-fledged automation framework. You can use Cucumber/testing/JUnit as your test engine. You can use something else for reporting, etc., etc. It's available in so many languages, so you can choose the one which is close to your application. It’s not like a separate tool with its own scripting framework lying and maintained on the side. If your application is in Java, you can also choose Java for Selenium. If its C#, you can choose C# for Selenium. So your developers can also contribute to your framework and code.
How has it helped my organization?
It has largely improved our efficiency in QA. So every regression we don’t have to run a lot of repeatable test cases for which the flow didn’t change. However they are important to execute, so automation helps us there. Daily Smoke runs and weekly regression runs ensure that Build is continuously tested, which helps in Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. I must be cautious here: You cannot automate everything as you still need the exploratory and cognitive behavior of a human being. So a part of testing over releases will still be manual. Efficiency can be achieved on repeatable tasks, which is still quite a gain.
What needs improvement?
Selenium could offer better ways to record and create scripts. IDE is available, however, it can be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
About four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues with stability. The Selenium community maintains it well.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Depends on the hardware we choose to host the automation scripts. No issues there.
How are customer service and technical support?
There is enough material on the internet and the community answers questions/problems pretty fast. So, very good!
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In the past I have used HPE QuickTest Pro, now ALM. Also Coded UI. However, Selenium is better for web applications, although the others provide more versatility in terms of supporting more than just web applications! They come with their license fees as well.
How was the initial setup?
As Selenium is just a library, you have to build the whole framework around it yourself. There are enough templates available on internet to give you a head start, though.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is no pricing cost. License is Apache License 2.0.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Ours is a web application and, considering my experience with other tools, our choice was easier. We did try Protractor and Jasmine, however Protractor is also based on Selenium. It works better with angular pages. For us, Selenium was enough and we want to use FitNesse.
What other advice do I have?
If you have a web application, I would strongly recommend this, as it has a lot of benefits as described above.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solution Architect at Coforge Growth Agency
Good interaction with web pages but could use better integration
Pros and Cons
- "Selenium HQ's most valuable feature is picking up and entering values from web pages."
- "An improvement to Selenium HQ would be the inclusion of a facility to work on Shadow DOM."
What is our primary use case?
The main use case of Selenium HQ is for end-to-end automation of UI applications.
What is most valuable?
Selenium HQ's most valuable feature is picking up and entering values from web pages.
What needs improvement?
An improvement to Selenium HQ would be the inclusion of a facility to work on Shadow DOM. I would also like better integration with applications like Salesforce.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've worked with Selenium HQ for eight to nine years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Selenium HQ is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Selenium HQ is scalable - you can execute on multiple browsers in parallel.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, I used UFT but switched to Selenium HQ as it's an open-source product while UFT is licensed.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward, and deployment took five months.
What about the implementation team?
We used an in-house team.
What other advice do I have?
In order to use Selenium HQ comfortably, you need to be very strong on Java skills. I would give Selenium HQ a rating of 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.
QMS Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 11-50 employees
An automated testing solution with a useful record and playback feature, but it would be better if you could run tests without technical skills
Pros and Cons
- "I like the record and playback features. We also appreciate that it's not just writing on a script that we create. While we were browsing our web application, it automatically records all the clicks and movements of points. We also appreciate the fact that it provides screenshots of everything in the output."
- "It would be better if we could use it without having the technical skills to run the scripting test."
What is our primary use case?
My company started using Selenium HQ two years ago for unit testing. We were trying to evaluate the record and playback features. We are basically outsourcing this function, and we're charged for every developed feature and testing. So, we thought that we could test it ourselves using the record and playback feature. We were navigating our web application records in a macro and tried to reproduce that later. But for some reason, it's not the best solution for us.
What is most valuable?
I like the record and playback features. We also appreciate that it's not just writing on a script that we create. While we were browsing our web application, it automatically records all the clicks and movements of points. We also appreciate the fact that it provides screenshots of everything in the output.
What needs improvement?
It would be better if we could use it without having the technical skills to run the scripting test.
For how long have I used the solution?
I think we have been using Selenium HQ for two years, but I only joined the company six months ago.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We are satisfied with its stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are satisfied with its scalability. We have five or six users working with Selenium HQ.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Selenium is an open-source solution, and It's free.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Selenium HQ a seven.
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.
OATS Automation Test Lead at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Simple initial setup, with high scalability, but needs some testing or report management tools
Pros and Cons
- "I have found using IDE and Cucumber framework is good."
- "I would like to see some reporting or test management tools."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is we have a new development going on for our tool, our project, where we have to test web-based applications. These are all web-based applications wherein Selenium fits well for all the web applications.
What is most valuable?
I have found using IDE and Cucumber framework is good.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see some reporting or test management tools.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Selenium HQ for the past eight months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is evident and it is a good tool.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a nine.
How are customer service and support?
When it comes to technical support you do have to go online for the support community.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Selenium only works with web-based applications, it does not work on desktops, or any Java-based, form-based applications. There is no automation for any of these kinds of applications. With the Oracle Application Testing Suite, it can do anything. Currently, it has some drawbacks in automating desktop-based applications. However, the main difference is Selenium only sticks to web-based applications. But Oracle Application Testing Suite, or any other testing suite, like UFT, can automate a form-based or desktop-based application.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very simple and not complex.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is open source.
What other advice do I have?
If you are wanting to do some web-based automation, definitely Selenium HQ is a good solution. I would rate Selenium HQ a six 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.
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The Firefox Selenium IDE is no longer supported so it might not make sense to adopt it.
Mark Smith.