We primarily use the solution for automating a solution on the web and automating testing.
Quality and Testing Services Leader at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Easy to use with a great interface and a free community edition
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is very easy to use. Once you learn how to do things, it becomes very intuitive and simple."
- "We'd like to see some more image management in future releases."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
We are a testing company. We can automate testing using Selenium.
What is most valuable?
The solution is very easy to use. Once you learn how to do things, it becomes very intuitive and simple. It's quite a user-friendly product.
The interface is great.
We've had good experiences dealing with support.
The pricing is fine.
Handling configurations is very good.
The stability has been good.
It's an easy product to set up and deploy.
If a company wants to scale it, it can.
The product offers a free community edition.
What needs improvement?
Selenium has problems with some objects. The objects are not in the squares of the screen. The layout can be a bit strange. It makes it hard to find objects.
We'd like to see some more image management in future releases.
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For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for two years at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is great. We haven't dealt with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. the performance is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
If you need to expand the solution, you can. We've never had an issue with scalability.
We have about seven people using the solution at this time.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is great. They are helpful and responsive. We haven't had a problem with them.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex or hard to do. It's pretty simple and straightforward. A company shouldn't have any problem implementing it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have found the pricing to be reasonable. It's not too high of a cost.
We are actually using the community edition, which is free.
What other advice do I have?
We are a customer and an end-user. We don't have a business relationship with Selenium.
We have the solution deployed both on-premises and on the cloud.
I'd rate the product at a nine out of ten. We've been very happy with the product.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Associate QA Manager at Xcel Serv Solution
Easy to set up and customize but is difficult for beginners to use
Pros and Cons
- "We can run multiple projects at the same time and we can design both types of framework, including data-driven or hybrid. We have got a lot of flexibility here."
- "The latest versions are often unstable."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution as a functional testing tool.
What is most valuable?
Selenium is a freeware tool, through which I am using Java for automating our project testing and with its feature grid and a different browser, I can do the functional testing. We can automate our functional testing through a browser. It supports all types of browsers including Firefox and Chrome.
We can run multiple projects at the same time and we can design both types of framework, including data-driven or hybrid. We have got a lot of flexibility here.
It's easy to customize according to our needs.
Now we are getting lots of extensions such as BlazeMeter, where you can record and generate the script and modify, et cetera.
The initial setup is easy.
What needs improvement?
The parallel testing in Selenium is lacking.
The latest versions are often unstable.
There's no UI in Selenium. Beginners who want to start using it must have knowledge of Java, Python, or any programming language. If you are using a Chrome extension, that is a BlazeMeter extension, you can record and make the script, however, that is not very helpful for beginners.
The editor is based on Eclipse. It would be nice if there was some in-built UI for this.
I am leading a 20 person team where I have some junior staff and we have to set up lots of demos and training for them to be comfortable with Selenium.
Occasionally, if someone is downloading the latest version of Java, it might not align with the Selenium version. There needs to be a way for Selenium to alert you if there will be a conflict between versions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The level of stability depends on the version you are referencing. For example, Version 3.1.46 is very stable, however, Version 4.0.0, the latest version, is not.
How are customer service and technical support?
There is no technical support available for Selenium, as it is an open-source product. There is a blog where you can find answers to questions, however, there's no one to actually reach out to.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, I was using VSTS Ultimate.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward and simple.
You first have to install Java, JDK, in your system. Then you can install an editor such as Eclipse. In Eclipse, you can incorporate all the Selenium jar files.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is free to use.
What other advice do I have?
The reason we are using version 3.14.1 and not the latest version is that this version is the latest most stable option. The most recent versions are often not the most stable.
I'd rate the solution at a six out of ten.
There are lots of tools in the market that are paid versions, such as QTP. Those have got lots of features. While Selenium has some good features, due to the fact that it's free, you cannot get support, which is why I have reduced my rating by a few points.
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.
Senior Test Automation Consultant at FAIR Consulting Group
Provides independence from other tools but outdated and heavy on man-power
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are ExpectedConditions, actions, assertions, verifications, flexible rates, and third-party integrations."
- "It takes such a long time to use this solution that it may be worth looking into other free solutions such as TestProject or Katalon Studio, or paid solutions to replace it."
What is our primary use case?
I mainly use Selenium for web applications.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are ExpectedConditions, actions, assertions, verifications, flexible rates, and third-party integrations. I also like that it's an in-house solution, which means you're not dependent on any tool.
What needs improvement?
I find Selenium to be slow - its server takes a long time to interact with your browser and sometimes fails. It's also somewhat outdated, for example, it has no capacity to handle things like desktop pop-ups, does not support mobile testing, and has very limited reporting. In future releases, I would like Selenium to focus on headless execution when executing their test cases, using PhantomJS or Chrome Headless.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have six years of experience with this solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There are issues with scalability in that it requires a technical person to perform it and takes a lot of time.
How are customer service and support?
Selenium is open-source and has no technical support, but there is a big online community on platforms such as Stack Overflow who provide help for users.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've previously used Node.js and Cypress.
How was the initial setup?
Selenium is comparatively difficult to set up and requires technical knowledge in order to integrate and configure it. I developed a complete, fully-functional framework for this solution, which took around eight months to automate around 100 test cases.
What other advice do I have?
In Selenium, you have to write extensive code - even if you want to automate one login scenario, you have to write a code of around 50 lines - which uses a disproportionate amount of man-hours. It takes such a long time to use this solution that it may be worth looking into other free solutions such as TestProject or Katalon Studio, or paid solutions to replace it.
Before implementing Selenium, I think it's very important to find out the maximum resusability of the code using the parameterized XPaths.
I would rate this solution as 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.
Automation Leader at a energy/utilities company with 1-10 employees
Stable automated browser with limited manual efforts required but should support parallel testing
Pros and Cons
- "Selenuim helps us during testing. We are able to reduce the number and frequency of manual efforts by using scripts."
- "I would like for the next release to support parallel testing."
How has it helped my organization?
Selenuim helps us during testing. We are able to reduce the number and frequency of manual efforts by using scripts.
What needs improvement?
I would like for the next release to support parallel testing.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using Micro Focus UFT which is for Windows application and used Selenium for web use. The two solutions are not comparable in my opinion because they both have their advantages and disadvantages.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward. I was able to add the packages that I wanted and quickly get started with development in a day.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Automation Tester at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Helps us navigate through applications effortlessly
Pros and Cons
- "For me, the most valuable feature of Selenium lies in its ability to help us find elements quickly. Apart from that, the driver interface is really useful, too. When we implement the Selenium driver interface, we can easily navigate through all of the pages and sections of an app, including performing things like clicking, putting through SendKeys, scrolling down, tagging, and all the other actions we need to test for in an application."
- "One drawback to Selenium is that there is nothing like an object repository, such as that found in QTP, especially considering continuous integration practices that have become common nowadays."
What is our primary use case?
Currently I am doing mobile application automation with Appium and Selenium, as well as front-end application automation with tools like WAVE for mobile and desktop applications. The only area that I'm not involved in at present is API testing, though I am hoping there will be opportunities to get to that as well in the future.
We typically use Selenium and Appium in automation and testing by first identifying which modules we are able to automate. Then, whenever we encounter some new course in the framework that we're using, and we need to use a hybrid kind of framework, we will use Selenium to resolve it.
How has it helped my organization?
Selenium has improved the way we work because if you do what we need to do manually, you'll have to expend a lot of time. For example, it would be a huge chore to navigate through an application manually every day, and particularly if there's a new build on the way, you would have to check all the regulations over again by hand. That would simply take too much time, and so what Selenium does for us is that in one resource it can handle the work of three, four resources, provided that the scripts are straightforward and coded properly. That's the main cool thing about Selenium, I would say.
What is most valuable?
For me, the most valuable feature of Selenium lies in its ability to help us find elements quickly. Apart from that, the driver interface is really useful, too. When we implement the Selenium driver interface, we can easily navigate through all of the pages and sections of an app, including performing things like clicking, putting through SendKeys, scrolling down, tagging, and all the other actions we need to test for in an application.
What needs improvement?
One drawback to Selenium is that there is nothing like an object repository, such as that found in QTP, especially considering continuous integration practices that have become common nowadays. In future, if they can provide an object repository or some kind of repository for data, then that I would greatly appreciate it. For example, once you have the app credentials and all the other security data and you don't want to show them to other people who are not authorized, a repository for this kind of data would be very useful. You could then simply grant access to only those people who need it.
Another improvement I can think of is in the area of documentation and support. With Selenium, we're using freeware software, and because of this there is no support or anything from the vendor. In this case, you have to rely solely on your own coding experience and exposure to the tool, and you often have to search through many pages of code when you want to change something in your implementation. It also makes you rely on your problem-solving skills to a large degree, because some problems are not that easy to solve by yourself.
If I can compare Selenium with another solution such as SoapUI Pro, there's a big difference when it comes to coding your own solutions. With SoapUI Pro, if you want to fetch some data, you don't need to write any code or anything, and for someone with no coding experience, this makes it much easier to be able to use effectively. So, ultimately, more support for non-technical people would make for a great improvement in Selenium.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Selenium HQ for the last two to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Selenium depends on the skill level of the team that is using it. If you are writing solid code for automating your scripts, then you will find that Selenium itself is a stable solution. But if you're writing sloppy code then you may find that Selenium slows down or becomes unstable. Truly, I think it all depends on the people who are using it, and how they approach the architecture of the framework.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I am hopeful that Selenium will scale well because, along with others nowadays, we plan to to move into cloud-based provisioning with continuous integration. We will be doing that with AWS, most likely.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't taken any technical support till now because Selenium is freeware, and you will not be getting any technical support directly. So that could be something that they could work on because if they were able to provide support, it would great for us and many others. Without it, you can still add code to the Selenium software itself, but they won't be able to help you with it.
On the other hand, I do believe there is enough documentation online for anyone who wants to figure it out by themselves. There are videos, tutorials, and other resources available to us.
How was the initial setup?
The setup of Selenium is easy, in my experience, since it is provided as JAR files that you can download. Apart from that, there is, I believe, an architectural approach where you can simply input your dependencies and it will automatically download all the JAR files needed, and other required files.
As for deploying the code, this is just as easy. For example, if you're working with some type of continuous integration, it's a breeze to deploy. First, you have to build up your framework, and then you can deploy it to Git, or GitHub, or anywhere you want. At this point it's just about uploading the code, so there's not much to it.
What about the implementation team?
I am currently implementing Selenium along with a few other tools. For example, for mobile device automation, I'm using Selenium with Appium. The Selenium architecture can be integrated with Appium in order to be able to automate with mobile devices such as Android and iOS, which is what I'm doing now. Beyond that, we also have desktop applications; for Windows we have EXE files and for Mac we have DMG files. With these, I have implemented the Windows application drivers using Selenium so that we're able to easily automate any Windows-based or Mac-based app.
As for the rest of the team who are implementing Selenium this way, we have about 15 people on the testing side of things, and 6 people in automation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Selenium is free software so we do not pay licensing costs.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others is that, first of all, you have to understand the process of automation from a general point of view, and how people get on with the coding and all that. If you only have manual experience, like a lot of new testers, then you likely don't have much experience in coding either. And in that case, my advice would be to first understand the logic of the process. For instance, before jumping into it from the deep end, try get a handle on a few small steps first, and as you go along you will learn the basic coding, the basic architecture, how Selenium works, how the automation process works, and so on.
Then, take a piece of code and ensure that it works as a standalone script, then finally jump into the framework. Develop from any framework, use it as best as possible, get some experience with it, and try to become an expert from there.
You can use any programming language you prefer. As for myself, I'm using Java, but you can use C#, Python, Ruby, PHP, etc. There's a lot of support for different programming languages with Selenium.
My biggest lessons while using Selenium have had to do with automation and how it really works, which is something I've always been interested in. Once I get an application, any application whether it be a WAVE app or mobile app, I very much enjoy getting stuck into the automation part of testing. And what I've learned is that not everything is that easy to automate.
In many cases, I have had to team up with new solutions and play around with code on my own, which has been a great learning experience for me. Apart from that, with Selenium I have been able to implement new things such as OCR (Optical Character Recognition) which is useful when you are not able to find all the elements you need, and I feel good that I was personally able to enhance the automation process with what I have learned along the way.
I would rate Selenium HQ an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Director Technology at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Gives a lot of freedom to code anything, there is no restriction on the type of function you can do
Pros and Cons
- "What I like the most about this product is that it gives us a lot of freedom to code anything, there is no restriction on the type of function you can do."
- "Selenium is good when the team is really technical because Selenium does less built-in methods. If it came with more built-in and pre-built methods it would be even easier for less technical people to work with it. That's where I think the improvement can be."
What is our primary use case?
We work for a client who does HRM solutions. They wanted us to develop their scripts using Selenium HQ. Typically, we develop UI, API and database scripts. These are the three combinations we have used for them. So their test cases are typically where we initially do some operations on the various applications they have. Then, once the operation is done, we initiate a few API calls and then we validate the data in the database. This whole process of trying to enter into, listen into, and close is done using Selenium HQ. This is what we are doing. We have close to 8,000 test cases in the last three years.
What is most valuable?
What I like the most about this product is that it gives us a lot of freedom to code anything, there is no restriction on the type of function you can do. Typically, we use Java with it, and Java has a lot of libraries available online, and whatever you need you can just write the Java code for that part of the work and then you can do it. This includes, multi-technology, the UI database, API image based testing - it lets us do everything.
What needs improvement?
Selenium is good when the team is really technical because Selenium does less built-in methods. If it came with more built-in and pre-built methods it would be even easier for less technical people to work with it. That's where I think the improvement can be.
I would also like to see a good method for image based automation. That's what I believe is a very upcoming thing and is something that Selenium really lacks. The imagery is kind of an automation. It's more of an object decipher, so that's something I really want to see because most of the tools are moving in that direction.
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 is stable, but one issue I see is that whenever there's a new version coming in, every three months or so, the current version changes and the new version of Selenium is not stable and then we have to wait for a week or so to get a patch for that.
We use Selenium HQ on a regular basis.
Overall there are around 20 people working on this just in my area, who are also responsible for delivery as well as maintenance.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
On a similar previous project, we scaled it. We went ahead and integrated the continuous integration and Jenkins Pipeline with QA. It was pretty scalable. We were able to connect it to CID and we were able to connect it to JIRA.
How are customer service and technical support?
In terms of customer support, it is more of a community support. There's a lot of small communities for Selenium HQ. I don't think Selenium HQ has official support. But there are a lot of communities. So typically we go to Stack Overflow and that kind of community where we just look for the support if we get stuck.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was pretty easy. There is lot of online documentation and online help. Even if you get stuck somewhere it just takes a few searches to figure out the issue because there is good community support.
What about the implementation team?
We were able to deploy and install this product all by ourselves without any extra help.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We tried MicroFocus UFT and we also evaluated Tosca. These are the two tools we evaluated along with HQ but we felt Selenium HQ was better for us.
The overall need for this project was that we were supposed to integrate across multiple technologies. When we started this project two years back we had to use API and a UI database. We were not allowed to use a lot of technologies. So we realized it would not be easy with other tools to combine three technologies in the same place since it's a different structure. This was not possible with UFT or Tosca. So that was one of the biggest reasons we chose Selenium HQ, because the whole project depended on that kind of a flow.
Additionally, there was the licensing issue. It was pretty costly at Tosca and MicroFocus UFT, whereas Selenium HQ is all open source and has a very good community support. So I think these are the two reasons we chose it.
What other advice do I have?
My personal advice is that it is such an amazing tool to work on. The best thing about the tool is the community support. I don't think any other tool has that kind of a community support. You just post a question on any popular community, like Stack Overflow, and you get answers in like 20 minutes. There are so many people using it which makes life really easy. At the same time, you get a lot of free hands to work on. Meaning because it's based on Java which has so many open source libraries, you can use any library to do any kind of functionality you want. That's a pretty powerful tool. My advice if you get stuck somewhere, is to just put it on community and then you get your answer.
On a scale of one to ten I would rate Selenium HQ an eight.
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.
Senior Automation Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Grid feature allows us to run UI tests in parallel, which saves time and improves efficiency
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the Selenium grid, which allows us to run tests in parallel."
- "I would like to see XPath made more reliable so that it can be used in all browsers."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use of this solution is UI testing.
How has it helped my organization?
This has improved our organization through the automation of UI test cases.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the Selenium grid, which allows us to run tests in parallel.
Selenium HQ easily integrates with other dependencies.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see XPath made more reliable so that it can be used in all browsers.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Selenium HQ for five years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Selenium Automation Engineer at a individual & family service with 10,001+ employees
I would advise you that it's a good tool to automate UI.
Pros and Cons
- "All the features in Selenium to automate the UI."
- "Selenium Grid set-up is bit complex."
What is most valuable?
All the features in Selenium to automate the UI.
How has it helped my organization?
Reduced license cost
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used it for four years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
There were issues.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There were issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There were issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
5/10
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
5/10
How was the initial setup?
Selenium Grid set-up is bit complex.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise you that it's a good tool to automate UI. There have been issues in the product.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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I like your article because it is well written. I noticed you said your team uses Java. What is the advantage of using Java over JavaScript?