Name: Selenium HQ
Brand: SeleniumHQ
Rating: 4.0 (113 reviews)

QA Automation Engineer with 501-1,000 employees

Feb 18, 2016

An overview of the Selenium Suite

Selenium is an open-source browser automation suite consisting of three parts: WebDriver, Server/Grid, and IDE. The IDE portion s useful for doing quick recordings of steps, but the resulting scripts are extremely fragile. This portion is also slated for deprecation with the upcoming release of Selenium 3.0. The remaining two-thirds of the suite are the most useful parts of this product.

The WebDriver API is the interface used to control browsers. Most popular browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.) are supported either directly or through secondary server interfaces that are available via the SeleniumHQ.org website. The ability to write tests that can be used cross-browser and cross-platform is one of the most valuable aspects of this product. In addition to being a cross-platform solution, Selenium has been ported from the original Java to multiple languages including Python, Ruby, and C#, which makes it a feasible option regardless of the language most frequently used in your organization.

Selenium Server/Grid allows for controlling a browser on a remote machine. If a grid is implemented, the tests will provide information regarding the browser and environment needed and the hub will then direct the test to an appropriate node. When the test is completed, the results are return via the hub. Establishing an in-house grid can be costly and difficult to maintain if your product requires multiple OSs and browsers. To date, my experience has been limited to working within a local grid environment, but other options, such as SauceLabs, can be used to outsource the grid while keeping the test development in-house.

One drawback of Selenium is that is does require development experience in order to create tests are not fragile and can be reused. There are many resources to teach someone how to use the API and some recommended strategies, such as the Page Object Model. The testing framework can be developed to work with Cucumber front-end to allow non-developers to create tests using Given-When-Then scenarios.

In regards to pricing, the Selenium Suite is a free automation API. This means that the cost of implementation is limited to personnel time and hardware required. This is an excellent deal when you consider that the learning curve/employee time and hardware tend to be the same regardless of the product used.

While it isn't without faults, Selenium is probably the best and most versatile web testing tool available. I highly recommend it's use over any of the products I have used in the past.

Update for 2.49.1:

The version seems to be a bit buggy. I noticed a greater sensitivity to screen resolutions and intermittent issues connecting with Firefox over Selenium Grid. I was forced to revert to 2.45.0 by these instabilities. I have seen that 2.52.0 has been released, but I have not had time to review it.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user376134Senior Automation Test Developer/Automation Test Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

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Nov 13, 2017

I upgraded our selenium to 3 and chromedriver is working fine but gecko driver 0.19. So I downgraded to 0.17, the issues gone.

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it_user373731

Software Engineering Intern at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Feb 9, 2016

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There were no issues with the stability.

Valuable Features

They are working on a new product which gives you an opportunity to test your product with different browsers at the same time.

Room for Improvement

They pay version is expensive, and I found it difficulot to implement.

Use of Solution

I used the free trial for 14 days.

Deployment Issues

There were no issues with the deployment.

Stability Issues

There were no issues with the stability.

Scalability Issues

There were no issues with the scalability.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

10/10

Technical Support:

7/10

Initial Setup

At the beginning, it was difficult to implement then it works.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

The free option is very limited, but the pay version is expensive.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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it_user371355

Senior Director, Software Development and Testing at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jan 26, 2016

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It gives us the ability to execute tests in parallel which provides time savings for testing.

Valuable Features

Automate test across several browsers such as IE, Chrome, Firefox and Safari
Write automation scripts in any language of your choice Java, C#, PHP, Python and many more
Ability to execute tests in parallel which provide time saving for testing
Ability to take screenshots of every tests
An open API that can be extended based on our needs
A Recorder Tool to record tests and execute them for non-developers

Improvements to My Organization

We provide IT services and solutions, and this solution helped our clients reduce their manual testing efforts to greater level. Our clients have realized benefits by reducing their testing cycle from three days to three hours through Selenium.

Room for Improvement

They can improve test reporting, and more importantly on test scripts, by providing less constructs to automate more complex testing scenarios.

Use of Solution

I've used it for the past nine years. We use it alongside Appium.

Deployment Issues

Deployment is little tricky but with good help from external vendors organizations, can implement a Selenium based test automation solution in a short period of time.

Stability Issues

There have been no issues with the stability.

Scalability Issues

There have been no issues with the scalability.

Customer Service and Technical Support

There is great on-line support from the users community. External vendors have innovative solutions build using these tools where they provide tremendous support.

Initial Setup

It was difficult to some extent, but with good documentation from the on-line community we where able to implement the tool.

Implementation Team

We did it in-house. If you are implementing it for enterprise level its better to seek external vendor help.

ROI

We have seen ROI of more than 60%. It's open source.

Other Advice

I would say start lean, gain small wins and incrementally add more. Example: Start automating test cases for one browser and slow expand to multiple browsers.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user374013

Associate Architect -Test Automation with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 21, 2016

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It's language and environment compatible.

What is most valuable?

Browser
Language and environment compatible
Opensource

How has it helped my organization?

We designed the Omani-channel automation framework, and achieved the maximum testing coverage includes localization (approximately 19), environment (web and mobile [iOS and Android]), and browser.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see an improvement in the iOS automation for hybrid app's and try to comparable for desktop app automation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for six years.

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?

I observed like batch execution issues and comparability issues like AngularJS app's etc.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were no issues with the scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

8/10 - they need to improve their in-office blog.

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

Used other is solutions for my assignments, and more opensource ones.

How was the initial setup?

It's simple to set-up.

What about the implementation team?

We did it in-house.

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

It's open-source so it's free.

What other advice do I have?

You'll be good to go with this.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. We are secondary sponsors.

it_user373947

QA Manager at a retailer with 501-1,000 employees

Jan 21, 2016

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The cross browser testing functionality helped us to find issues quicker in specific browsers.

What is most valuable?

Automate any web page by providing URL
One can use any programming language such as Ruby, Java, Python and few others
Support for several types of locators
Cross browser support

How has it helped my organization?

We run automated test cases after every deployment. The product helped us to implement continuous integration and worry free deployment process.

What needs improvement?

I had issues testing a flash application with Selenium Webdriver.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for five years.

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?

There have been no issues with the stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There have been no issues with the scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

It is an open source product with a strong user base and lot of user community support.

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

I have briefly used QTP. There are a few reasons.It is an open-source tool and it has cross browser support. Testers can run automated test cases in different browser, and QA engineers can write test cases in his/her choice of language such as Java, Ruby, Python and a few others.

How was the initial setup?

The set up is straightforward if you have a programming background.

What was our ROI?

It is an open source tool but price in terms of time it is totally worth it. It saves us lot of time and cost once implemented. The cross browser testing functionality helped us to find issues quicker in specific browsers.

What other advice do I have?

The product has record and play back tool but it is always better to write your own code and implement the framework.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user376134Senior Automation Test Developer/Automation Test Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

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Jan 5, 2017

Jenkins is free and it has so many plugins even.
I experienced 2 migrations to Jenkins from TeamCity and CircleCI because of the growing automation needs.
(Sorry, I wanted to post this comment in the Build tools area. And it seems I cannot delete this comment now.)

it_user177897

QA Expert at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jan 20, 2016

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It provides us simple objects recognition and multi-language support.

What is most valuable?

Simple objects recognition
It's easy to use
Multi-language support
Open source with good support
A lot of information and help online

What needs improvement?

Selenium IDE needs to be improved not like just an record / play back tool, but as effective web elements spy. TestNG has more support, and also has ntegration with Appium and Jmeter which Selenium misses.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for 10 years, since 2005.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Throughout the last five years, I have not had any difficulty to install or set-up Webdriver.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is an open source, so some issues are always pop[ing up , but compared to other open source automation tools web driver is much much better.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It covers all regression testing with 20,000 test cases run during 24 hours and easy maintenance.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer support is very good for a non-commercial tool.

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

I used Silk Test and Win Runner previously. Borland SilkTest is an excellent tool, but it costs.

How was the initial setup?

It very straight forward and easy. Of course it’s required basic programming skills.

What about the implementation team?

We have in house automation framework and it works great with continuous integration. I do not see reasons to pay for third party services.

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

It's a free tool.

What other advice do I have?

Just use web driver and enjoy.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user360246

Test Automation Engineer at a security firm with 51-200 employees

Jan 20, 2016

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The parallel batch execution as well as reporting feature in the tests are very valuable to me.

What is most valuable?

The parallel batch execution as well as reporting feature in the tests are very valuable to me.

How has it helped my organization?

We are using this product to do regression testing. In this way it has improved the quality of our product.

What needs improvement?

As of now I can't see anything which needs to be improved but once I am through with Selenium, will let you know.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for one year and two months.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

I have not had any issues with the deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not had any issues with the stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not had any issues with the scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

It's an open source tool. So the only support is Google for us.

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

This product is more user friendly than others. So this is the reason for choosing this product.

How was the initial setup?

The set-up was straightforward.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user373083

QA Test Lead at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jan 20, 2016

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CI can be achieved with tools like Jenkins. Like QTP, there should be an option to run the test from a point or state of application.

What is most valuable?

It supports many programming languages like Java, and Ruby etc.
It can be plugged with Junit, TestNG and other Java frameworks for reporting
CI can be achieved with tools like Jenkins

How has it helped my organization?

Cost effective solution for automation test.

What needs improvement?

Dynamic Debugging needs to be improved. Like QTP, there should be an option to run the test from a point or state of application. Currently the test should be run from the beginning to debug or test the new scenario which has been added.