Top Selenium Alternatives for 2022

In this article, we will discuss top Selenium alternatives for web testing. Before we move to the specific details, let's first cover some basics of Selenium and why we need an alternative for this?

Selenium is one of the most popular open-source web automation testing tools. It is used for functional, regression, and load testing of web applications. It supports several scripting languages and programming languages. Selenium can be integrated with other frameworks such as JUnit, TestNG, and NUnit to manage the test cases and generate reports.

It is a convenient and light-weighted suite of tools that enables the test teams to run automated tests for web applications on any operating system, including Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android. And browsers like Safari, Chrome, IE, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera.

It primarily has three components –

• Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE)


• Selenium WebDriver


• Selenium Grid

Selenium has some excellent advantages as a test automation tool, and the key reason for its popularity is that it does not require any license and portability costs. It provides auto-complete functions, single-click recording, and playback and offers test choices to various ability levels.

Despite being the handy and popular cross-browser automation testing tool it needs to identify why people are looking for Selenium Alternatives. So let’s find out where Selenium is missing its mark.

Although Selenium supports multiple languages to code the logic behind test scripts, some of them lack consistent nominal and technical support due to being an open-source tool. So, as a beginner, if you need support in those languages, this may not be a solution except for the advanced user.

Using Selenium, one cannot test native mobile or mobile web applications because it is a framework only for web applications.

There are no built-in reporting capabilities as it requires third-party plugins to provide such a feature. Using Selenium execution of visual regression testing and layout testing is not possible. Even though it provides its users to run parallel tests on multiple machines, additional knowledge is a must for the setup. Otherwise, it will take too long to run those tests.

Selenium has no doubt changed the automation testing history, but these are some of its limitations that have let some testers find an alternative for this tool. For that, there are valuable options available. In this guide, we will discuss a few of them.

1. Cypress

Cypress is an open-source test automation solution for web environments supporting the latest development tools. Its rich features make it a preferred option over Selenium. It does not require any configuration to install on different operating systems like Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Tests are executed in real-time in the browser. Thus, the test can be written while building an application and provide immediate feedback on the test. It does not require any wait commands; it automatically waits for commands and assertions before moving on.

Cypress commands are executed inside the browser, whereas Selenium does it outside the browser remotely. It has many other features over Selenium, like reloading changes in real-time, monitoring test files automatically, taking a snapshot automatically on failure, capturing video of an entire test run, etc.

2. Galen framework

Initially, Galen was a test framework only for testing the layout of web applications in a real browser. But with its great potential now, it has become a fully functional testing framework. This test tool can be integrated with Selenium for visual and layout testing of the web applications and allows setting up tests to run in a cloud-like LmabdaTest where you can test website responsiveness on different mobile devices.

This alternative to selenium offers different screen sizes and multiple browser support. Its Image Comparison feature allows you to check and display the mismatching area visually. Misaligned elements automatically get highlighted and its error reporting helps you to easily find out what goes wrong on the page.

3. LambdaTest

LambdaTest is another popular platform that can be used as an alternative to Selenium. It supports both web apps and mobile app testing. This simple, secure, flexible, and reliable tool provides functional and regression testing, cross-browser testing, continuous testing, data-driven testing, and many more.

LambdaTest is a cloud-based cross-browser compatibility testing platform that provides instant access to a cloud of more than 3000 real devices, browsers, and operating systems with their respective versions. This smart technology platform allows you to test your websites and web apps with the widest coverage of browsers, platforms, and devices. It helps in managing and maintaining tasks effortlessly and reduces your test times vastly.

It has been created to be an all-in-one test automation platform where you can plan, design, develop, run, and analyze tests. This platform helps you test faster, improve user experience and increase your website's conversion rate by boosting your site's quality. It also provides features like playing back videos and screenshots of each test that help the testers quickly identify and debug any issues within the apps.

To keep up with the growing demands of faster delivery, test automation is essential, and testing on a real device cloud is the only way to ensure the complete accuracy of results, and LambdaTest is one such platform providing you with those benefits.

4. Watir

Watir stands for Web Application Testing In Ruby. It is one of the selenium competitors and an open-source Ruby library used for automating web browsers. It supports functional and regression web testing and can be used to automate regression testing suites.

Watir interacts with a wide range of browsers like Safari, IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc. the same way people do, like clicking the links, form filling, and text validation.

This tool is Light-weighted, and with its full-featured modern scripting language support, writing and maintaining test scripts have made it easy to use. In addition, this Ruby library family supports all other technologies.

5. Subject7

Subject7 is a cloud-based, “true codeless,” easy-to-use test automation tool that enables the teams to reduce technical complexities and accelerate test automation carelessly at scale. The setup does not require any technical ability to use; this enables both the technical and non-technical users to execute tests seamlessly.

It allows the video capture of results and flexible and accurate reporting of issues. If you don’t have any coding or technical skill and you are trying to catch test failures effortlessly through automation, then this option will be best for you.

6. Cucumber

Cucumber is another well-known Selenium alternative and is used as BDD (Behavior Driven Development) automation testing tool. This tool is easy to set up and execute. Initially, it was written in the Ruby programming language but later on supports Java and JavaScript. It is a preferred option over Selenium because it enables the users who can’t read code to test scenarios without coding by using a scripting language called Gherkin.

Gherkin is a simple English script that allows the tester to write down scenarios by describing the behavior of an application from the user's perspective. It then runs the test automation based on these scenarios.

Cucumber is amazingly simple as it does not require any language learning. Code in tests can be reused because it is much simpler to create test automation scripts. English scripts make it easy to write, read, and understand without prior experience in test management. But this is not the case in Selenium because it uses coding scripts and languages.

7. Protractor

The protractor is an open-source automation framework, formally called an end-to-end testing framework. It is specifically designed for automation of AngularJS applications testing using JavaScript.

For testers who don’t have a programming background, this Selenium alternative is one of the best for them. They just need to have knowledge of JavaScript as it is available only for one language. Protractor runs tests of your web application in a real browser, imitating a user’s interactions with it.

With its ‘Automatic Waiting’ function, the test steps get automatically executed without waiting for the test and the webpage to sync. Hence you can test your web apps faster with this tool.

Protractor has all the unique functions and features that are available with Selenium because it is built on top of JavaScript Selenium WebDriver. Hence you can reap the benefits of all the Selenium tests and automation tools with it.

8. Robot framework

Robot Framework is an open-source test automation framework used for acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development (ATDD). It provides frameworks for different types of test automation needs.

Robot Framework test scripts are written in English words rather than code. Thus codeless test automation makes it a lot simpler to use than Selenium. This Framework can be used as an automation framework for not only web testing but also for Android and iOS test automation, which is not available in Selenium.

Robot Framework is a suite containing various third-party integration tools, libraries, and functionalities. Initially, this framework was written in Python, but the newest versions come with Java as well. Its testing capabilities can be further expanded by using extra test libraries. At the same time, Selenium itself is a library.

Robot Framework is independent and not bound to any platform, application, browser, operating system, or technology. This tool allows you to use multiple platforms for writing test scripts. It is easy to learn for users who are familiar with keyword-based testing.

Its all-inclusive features and functionalities like clear reports, separate test data editor, test libraries, detailed logs, etc., make it a commanding framework over Selenium.

Conclusion

If you need testing tools for an open-source web automation testing framework or you pay for purpose-specific tools, there are lots of other Selenium alternatives like Screenster, Katalon Studio, Ghost Inspector, Sahi, etc.

Each tool has its own unique feature and can perform tasks that are not possible for Selenium. Based on the information in this article, you can select the right tool by evaluating your needs and application requirements like the type of test needed, language requirements, etc. so that you will be able to make use of it. Whichever  Selenium alternative suits your overall needs, always going for real device testing is best. Through the LambdaTest platform, you can verify website performance, cross-browser compatibility, and the overall user experience.