Test automation tool Selenium was developed in the year 2004 by ThoughtWorks for their internal usage. Since then it has emerged as one of the most widely used automation tools in the market.
In this article, we will see the problems associated with Selenium and the reasons why Selenium should still be your preferred choice of test automation.
Why are newbies afraid of Selenium?
- Selenium has a very steep learning curve
The Selenium suite has multiple components – Selenium IDE, Selenium WebDriver, and Selenium Grid. These components have a very steep learning curve. It takes a fair bit of understanding and hands-on to master these components. So, it is all the more important to choose and follow a thorough and well-crafted Selenium Tutorial that can help readers learn about this tool from scratch. - It requires programming expertise
Selenium WebDriver, the most important part of the Selenium suite requires scripting in Java, Python, Ruby, and C#, etc. languages. So, non-programmers need to have a fair bit of understanding of these languages even before starting to learn this tool. - It requires other libraries for creating a complete test suite
Selenium is just an automation tool that automates web application. In order to create a complete test suite, it requires other capabilities like – reading from external files, logging, a testing framework like TestNG, build automation feature, mailing of test reports, etc. All these features require integrating Selenium with other libraries/tools like – POI, log4j, TestNG, Maven, etc.
So, we can see that Selenium has some limitations. Still, why should Selenium be the first automated tool that you should learn? Let’s find out.
- It has maximum market share.
Selenium is a free and open-source tool and because of this it has the maximum market share of all the paid and free test automation tools out there. From startups to well-established industry giants, Selenium is used across all levels of industry. So, the demand for Selenium automation engineers is always high.
- It helps in understanding the fundamentals of automation.
In Selenium you are required to create your own automation framework and integrate it with other libraries. As such, it helps in understanding all the concepts of automation which you might miss when using any other automation tool that has pre-defined frameworks and modules.
- It supports multiple browsers and languages.
Using Selenium you can automate web applications across all the browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Microsoft Edge – with support for all the major programming languages like – Java, Python, Ruby, C#, etc. So, clearly the programming language and the platform are not a constraint in learning Selenium.
- It is easy to set up and requires fewer resources.
Selenium WebDriver comes in the form of a library that you can simply include in your project. Unlike other tools, you can easily set up Selenium with your preferred IDE and execute automated test scripts with minimal resources. - It has a great community support.
Even though Selenium is free and open-source it still boasts a very active community which constantly looks to update the tool and resolve user queries and help them with any of their issues. - It has numerous online and offline learning resources
It all boils down to demand and supply. Since there is always a huge demand for the Selenium automation tester, there is no dearth of online resources teaching Selenium. You can always find the best, well-curated Selenium tutorials both online and offline. - It is easier to pick other automation tools after learning Selenium
The reason I recommend Selenium to be the first tool you should learn while starting your automation journey is – mastering Selenium will make you understand all the intricacies of test automation. After learning Selenium you can easily pick any new automation tool, be it a codeless automation tool or a tool requiring some form of scripting.
This brings us to the end of this article on the top 7 reasons why Selenium should be your preferred choice for test automation. I hope these reasons will help you to start learning Selenium for automating all kinds of Web-applications.
