10 Best Selenium Alternatives Testers Should Know

Selenium is a convenient and portable software testing tool specifically used for testing web applications. It acts as an API (Application Program Interface) for browser automation. Selenium is the widely used free and open-source tool used for automation testing of web applications through various browsers and platforms.

Selenium is used for functional and regression testing of web applications. Selenium supports multiple programming and scripting languages like Java, Ruby, Perl, PHP and Python to code the logic behind the test scripts.

Advantages of Selenium

- There is no licensing cost for Selenium users, as it is an open-source testing tool. Selenium is a cross-platform tool that supports cross-browser testing.

- Selenium users can perform tests on any operating system like Android, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Linux.

- Selenium can be used across various browsers like Safari, Chrome, IE, Mozilla, and Opera.

- To generate the reports and manage the test cases Selenium can be integrated with other frameworks like JUnit, TestNG and NUnit.

Still, it misses the mark as users would need to employ skilled QA developers, which can be expensive. 

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Why Do People Search for the Selenium Alternatives?

- Using Selenium one can test only the web applications. It is not suitable to test desktop or mobile or any standalone applications.

- There is no consistent nominal and technical support from any team as it is an open-source tool. Tests of Selenium are unstable. If new versions of Selenium libraries are released to fix an issue then it may disturb or make the earlier test unstable.

- Due to its low-level API, the Test maintenance in Selenium is a struggle. It doesn’t help or assist the developer to deal with the error capturing, page screenshots and element locators.

- Even though Selenium supports its users to run parallel tests on multiple machines, that set up needs quite a bit of additional knowledge without which it takes a too long time to run the tests.

- Using Selenium one cannot execute testing on images.

Thus, applications have turned out to be progressively intricate in the recent years, particularly with the utilization of prominent JavaScript structures, for example, Angular.js, React.js, Vue.js, and Ember.js for developing web applications; Selenium has assumed it to be challenging to adjust to these advances.

There are some strong contenders to Selenium available in the market. Following is a curated list of highly considered Selenium alternatives.

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1.  Subject7

Subject7 is an automation platform providing end-to-end test automation capabilities through a series of commands. These commands are available via an easy-to-use web interface. Mimicking user actions, each command hides the complexities of industry-standard packages such as Selenium, Appium, SikuliX, JMeter, ZAP, and others.

Key Features:

Easy to use web interface for non-coders.

Integrates with JIRA, Jenkins, and REST capable DevOps pipeline.

Zero setup and scales executions leveraging AWS, Azure, and Google clouds. Email notifications, video recordings, team collaboration, and more.

Using open-source standards such as Selenium and Appium to drive web and mobile. Includes database, web services, SSH, etc.

2.  Cypress

Cypress is an open-source automation solution with rich features that support present development tools. And no configuration is needed to install Cypress.

Key Features:

Cypress tests are similar to JavaScript as they use Mocha and Chai. Tests are executed in real-time in the browser by providing immediate feedback on the test.

Using Cypress, the developer-driven unit tests can be easily linked with the tester-driven front-end tests with which the development and testing happen simultaneously.

Cypress executes its commands inside the browser whereas Selenium does it outside the browser remotely.

Cypress can be installed on Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems.

Cypress has many features over Selenium like reloading the changes in real-time, monitoring the test files automatically, built-in mocking, stubbing, and spies.

3.  Ranorex

Over 14,000 users worldwide accelerate testing with Ranorex Studio, an all-in-one tool for cross-platform test automation. Ranorex is easy for beginners with a code-less click-and-go interface, but powerful for automation experts with a full IDE.

Key Features:

Robust object identification for reliable tests and reduced maintenance Shareable object repository and reusable code modules

Cross-browser testing

Automates challenging interfaces like SAP, ERP, Delphi and legacy applications Run tests in parallel or distribute on a Selenium Grid

Built-in reporting

4.  Robot Framework

Robot Framework is an open-source test automation framework used for acceptance test-driven development (ATDD) and acceptance testing. Robot Framework is standard and uses a keyword-driven testing approach and behavior-driven.

Robot Framework is a package of 3rd party libraries, integration tools, solid functionalities, etc. Robot Framework is an automation framework that uses the external libraries whereas Selenium is a library.

Originally Robot Framework is written in Python but the newest versions use Java as well. Robot Framework is a technology, application, platform, and Operating System independent.

Features of Robot Framework which makes it a commanding framework are Generic test libraries, high-

level architecture, separate test data editor, clear reports, detailed logs, etc.

Robot Framework is much simpler than Selenium because the test scripts are in English words rather than code.

5.  Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is a complete cross-platform test automation solution for Web, Mobile, API & Desktop app testing. Built on top of Selenium and Appium frameworks, Katalon Studio revolutionizes the use of open-source test automation frameworks by eliminating the technical complexities, allowing testers to efficiently set up, create, run, report, and manage automated tests effectively.

Key Feature

Katalon Studio provides a friendly UI that enables quick and easy test environment set-up. Testers can easily leverage Katalon Studio’s pre-built templates and test scripts.

With a short learning curve, Katalon Studio is suitable for testers with minimal coding skills. It has a ready-made framework, a built-in recorder, and predefined test methods, allowing users to get started without disruption.

For the non-technical testers, the recording and keywords capabilities are useful to build up new test cases. For experienced testers with advanced needs, it provides a productive IDE to build tests with scripting methods.

Katalon Studio supports cross-platform testing on almost all operating systems, as well as different web and mobile platforms.

Katalon supports native plugins for integrations with different purposes: SDLC and CI/CD management, team collaboration, and many more.

6.  Parasoft Selenic

Parasoft Selenic leverages AI to address your problems with Selenium so you don’t have to get rid of Selenium. It works directly with your existing Selenium tests, so you’re not locked into a proprietary platform.

Key Features:

Self-healing at runtime and AI-driven recommendations post-execution. You can efficiently maintain existing Selenium scripts, reducing the time spent maintaining, repairing, and fixing broken tests.

Create Selenium test suites with the Page Object Model. Teams can rapidly build maintainable testing practice from the start.

Optimize test execution with Test Impact Analysis. Cross-correlating test execution with underlying code changes gives you quicker feedback from your CI/CD pipeline.

7. Cucumber

Cucumber removes any barrier among non-technical and technical project personnel. Fundamentally, that is the crucial element of its mystery sauce. Actually, Cucumber can go about as a Selenium alternative or perform in pairs with Selenium both.

Key Features:

Due to the use of BDD, Business and IT teams can understand the tests. Cucumber merges specification and test documentation into one cohesive whole Updated continuously and with large community support.

In the Cucumber framework, functional requirements, acceptance tests, and documentation converge into a solitary automatically refreshed source for testers and partners.

8. Watir

Watir is an open-source Ruby library for automating the test. It supports functional and regression web tests.

Key Features:

It supports web apps irrespective of what it is developed in. It supports multiple browsers on different platforms

Watir is a family of Ruby libraries, but it supports all other technologies

It uses Ruby, a full-featured modern scripting language, rather than a proprietary vendor script

9. Screenster

Screenster is a cloud-based UI testing platform. It is used for visual regression testing of web applications and websites. It captures a screenshot of each step and stores it as a baseline.

Key Features:

Low-code solutions that enable you to automate UI tests without hand-coding. Recording tests in the easiest and fastest way to automate visual testing

Screenster can run tests as part of CI. So, if a difference is detected between the baseline and a regression run, the test is marked as failed.

It offers great features like auto-correcting smart selectors and automatic timeout management.

10. TestCraft

TestCraft is a codeless Selenium test automation platform. The revolutionary AI technology and unique visual modeling allows for faster test creation and execution while eliminating test maintenance overhead. Testers create fully automated test scenarios without coding. Customers find bugs faster, release more frequently, integrate with CI/CD and improve the overall quality of their digital products.

Key Features:

No programming skills required. Leverage manual testers’ business knowledge and allow them to create automated test scenarios

Substantially reduce maintenance costs. Scripts are automatically adjusted to change due to our AI mechanism. Major changes are adapted with a few clicks Selenium-based. Quickly integrate and leverage modules developed by the community Provides immediate time to value. Nothing to install (SaaS). Easy to master

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