Why Selenium WebDriver Should Be Your First Choice for Automation Testing

Why Automation Testing With Selenium WebDriver Should Be Your First Choice?

Now that we are all aware of what Selenium WebDriver is and its difference from other versions of Selenium. Let’s discuss the benefits of automation testing with Selenium WebDriver.

1. Open Source

First of all, the major benefit of automation testing with Selenium WebDriver is the fact that it is open source. It provides all the features of QTP and relatively more, completely free of cost. It can be downloaded directly from the official site and being community-based, support for the tool is also available.

2. Language Support

Multilingual support is one of the major benefits of Selenium WebDriver for automation testing. WebDriver supports all the programming languages that testers should know of such as like Python, PHP, Java, C#, Ruby, JavaScript etc. Although it has a customized script language, it also offers bindings to every major programming language. Adding flexibility to web developers to work on any programming language that they are comfortable with.

3. Works Across Multiple OS

Unlike the previously released versions, one of the major benefits of Selenium Webdriver for automation in testing with Selenium WebDriver supports multiple OS like Linux, UNIX, Mac as well as Windows. Using their solution suite, a customized testing suite can be created which can be used over any platform. WebDriver makes it possible for you to create a test case on Windows and execute it on Mac.

4. Cross Browser Compatibility Testing

Unlike its previous versions, the benefits of automation in testing with Selenium WebDriver have expanded the support for automated cross browser testing. It supports all the major browsers so you could test on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE, Edge, Yandex and many more. When you are executing cross browser testing of a website, WebDriver provides you with an automated solution.

5. Supports Multiple Frameworks and Languages

WebDriver can be integrated with various frameworks like Maven or ANT for compiling the source code. For application testing and reporting, it can also be integrated with testing frameworks like TestNG to ease automation testing with Selenium WebDriver. It can even integrate with Jenkins for Continuous Integration or Continuous Delivery automated build and deployment.

6. Cross-Device Testing

Support across multiple devices is another major benefits of automation testing with Selenium WebDriver. Automated test cases can now be written for testing on iPhones, Blackberry, and Android, thereby helping in addressing cross-device issues.

7. Community Support

The support of Selenium is mostly community-based, thereby enabling regular upgrades and updates. All the updates are available whenever required and do not require any specific training. Thus, making Selenium WebDriver budget friendly as well as resourceful.

8. Easy to Implement

User friendliness of Selenium WebDriver is one of the widely acclaimed benefits of Selenium WebDriver for automation testing. The tool being open source, it allows users to script their personalized extensions which allows them to develop actions that are customized and can be manipulated once the user reaches an advanced level.

9. Add-ons and Reusability

The scripts written using Selenium WebDriver supports browser compatibility testing. Thus, it is possible for a tester to run multiple testing scenarios with WebDriver since it covers every functionality testing aspects. The add-ons which can be customized widens the scope of testing an application, serving great benefits of automation testing with Selenium WebDriver.

10. Mouse Cursor and Keyboard Simulation

An important feature of WebDriver is that it can mimic a real user scenario by handling mouse and keyboard events. The API, Advanced User Interactions consists of the action classes required when those events are needed to be executed. You can automate simple scenarios like a mouse click or keypress event as well as complex events like drag and drop, click and hold, multiple items selection, etc.

11. Leveraging the Code

Another one of the major benefits of automation testing with Selenium WebDriver also provides the advantage of speeding up the test cycles by leveraging the development code. Testers can utilize the language used by developers. For example, if a tester wants to verify the date field which is updated in the database, instead of performing an indirect verification by browsing to another page, the tester can pull the data model utilized by the application without the worry of automating the data flow.

12. Server Starting Not Required

A major benefit of automation testing with Selenium WebDriver is that you don’t need to start any server prior to testing. The commands written in the code are interpreted directly into Webservices and the remote driver receives them via HTTP requests which can then be executed into the browser, consequently sending the response.

13. Advanced Browser Interactions

WebDriver also makes it possible for you to simulate advanced interactions like clicking the browser back and front buttons. There are no such open-source tools that can provide automated testing for this kind of scenario. This is highly useful for testing fintech applications involving online money transfer or banking application that does not store any cookies or cache.