When was Selenium 4 released?

Selenium 4 was announced in 2018 and released as stable version 4.0.0 on 13 October 2021, after an extended alpha and beta period. It has been updated regularly since, and Selenium 4 is the current major version across the Java, Python, .NET, Ruby, and JavaScript bindings.

What is the major difference between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4?

Selenium 4 is fully W3C WebDriver compliant, while Selenium 3 used the JSON Wire Protocol and needed a translation layer to talk to browser drivers. Removing that layer means WebDriver communicates with the browser directly, which makes test execution more stable and more consistent across browsers. Selenium 4 also rebuilt Selenium Grid and added relative locators and native Chrome DevTools Protocol access.

Is Selenium 4 faster than Selenium 3?

Selenium 4 removes the JSON Wire Protocol encoding and decoding step between the client and the browser driver, so commands take a more direct path. In practice teams notice fewer flaky failures and more consistent behaviour across browsers rather than a dramatic drop in raw execution time, because most test duration is spent waiting on the application under test rather than on protocol overhead.

Does Selenium 4 need ChromeDriver?

Selenium 4 still drives Chrome through ChromeDriver, but from Selenium 4.6 onwards you no longer download or configure it yourself. Selenium Manager is built into the bindings and automatically discovers, downloads, and configures the correct driver for the browser it finds, so setting a system property for the driver path is no longer required.

What are relative locators in Selenium 4?

Relative locators let you find an element by its position relative to another element, using above(), below(), toLeftOf(), toRightOf(), and near(). They are useful when an element has no stable id or class of its own but sits in a predictable position next to one that does.

Do I have to rewrite my Selenium 3 tests to move to Selenium 4?

Most Selenium 3 tests run on Selenium 4 with small changes rather than a rewrite. The main migration work is replacing the deprecated DesiredCapabilities class with browser specific options classes such as ChromeOptions and FirefoxOptions, and updating the waits and Grid setup. Upgrading the language binding version and fixing what the compiler flags as deprecated covers most suites.

World’s largest virtual agentic engineering & quality conference

WHENAUG 19-21

WHEREVirtual · Global

TestMu AI (Formerly LambdaTest)
/
Learning Hub
/
Selenium 4 : With Examples And Best Practices

Testing

Selenium 4 : With Examples And Best Practices

Selenium 4 explained: what changed from Selenium 3, W3C WebDriver compliance, relative locators, Selenium Manager, and how to upgrade your existing tests.

Shahzeb Hoda

Author

Published on: November 18, 2025

Last Updated on: January 12, 2026

On This Page

Overview
Upgrading From Selenium 3
What's New & Deprecated
Selenium 4 With Python
W3C Compliance
Relative Locators
Selenium Grid 4

Selenium 4 is the current major version of Selenium. It was announced in 2018, spent three years in alpha and beta, and shipped as stable 4.0.0 on 13 October 2021; the line has been updated steadily since. The headline change is W3C WebDriver compliance, which removed the JSON Wire Protocol translation layer and made cross browser tests less flaky. This tutorial walks through what changed, how to upgrade from Selenium 3, and how to use the features Selenium 4 added.

Test across 3000+ browser and OS environments with TestMu AI

Upgrading From Selenium 3 To Selenium 4?

In this chapter, we will cover in detail how to upgrade from Selenium 3 to Selenium 4 for Java language bindings. Apart from Java, it is easy to upgrade to Selenium 4 for Selenium supported languages like Python, C#, PHP, Ruby, and JavaScript. Ready to upgrade?

SEE MORE →

What's New In Selenium 4 & What's Being Deprecated?

The most significant change in Selenium 4 is W3C compliance of WebDriver APIs, which boils down to less flaky and more stable cross browser tests. In this chapter, we will cover some of the significant enhancements in Selenium 4 in detail. Also, we will cover some of the features that are deprecated and changed in this newest version. Checkout the blog to learn more!

SEE MORE →

Selenium 4 With Python

In this chapter, we will show you how to install Selenium 4 for Python. Also, we walk you through the Python Selenium 4 features and how you can use those features in your Python Selenium tests.

SEE MORE →

Selenium 4 Is Now W3C Compliant

Selenium users can expect less flaky, more consistent, and more stable Selenium automation testing with WebDriver W3C protocol in Selenium 4. Though JSON Wire Protocol will retire in Selenium 4, the possibility is that your tests might be using W3C protocol even though they are not tested on Selenium 4. This is because the WebDriver W3 protocol is available in Selenium v3.8 onwards. Read the blog to learn more!

SEE MORE →

How To Use Selenium 4 Relative Locator?

Selenium 4 introduced a new type of locator called the relative locator. It lets you find an element by its position next to another element, so developers can reach nearby web elements with fewer lines of code. Read the blog to see how to use it in your test cycles.

SEE MORE →

Selenium Grid 4 Tutorial For Distributed Testing

Selenium Grid 4 was rebuilt for Selenium 4, replacing the old hub-and-node design with a distributed architecture of Router, Distributor, Session Map, and Node. Read this guide to learn how to run distributed tests on it.

SEE MORE →

Run tests up to 70% faster on the TestMu AI cloud grid

Author

Shahzeb Hoda

Blogs: 7

Shahzeb Hoda is the Associate Director of Marketing and a Community Contributor at TestMu AI, leading strategic initiatives in developer marketing, content, and community growth. With 10+ years of experience in quality engineering, software testing, automation testing, and e-learning, he has authored and reviewed 70+ technical articles on software testing and automation. Shahzeb holds an M.Tech in Computer Science from BIT, Mesra, and is certified in Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Appium, and KaneAI. He brings deep expertise in CI/CD pipeline automation, cross-browser testing, AI-driven testing practices, and framework documentation. On LinkedIn, he is followed by 3,700+ engineers, developers, DevOps professionals, tech leaders, and enthusiasts.