DEV Community: WallTech

Intro to Playwright & Cypress: Choosing the Right Tool

WallTech — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 20:32:27 +0000

If you’ve been following our QA series, you already know how much power lies in understanding the DOM, locators, and selectors.
Now let’s move from theory to practice - to the frameworks that make all that knowledge come alive: Playwright and Cypress.

Both are modern, fast, and open-source. They share the same goal - making web automation reliable - but they take very different roads to get there.

Playwright: Power and Flexibility

Playwright was designed with scalability in mind.
It’s not just another testing library - it’s a full-blown automation platform that lets you test web, mobile, and API layers under one roof.

Key things to love:

Multi-browser and cross-platform support (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit)
Works with multiple languages: TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, C#
Excellent integration with CI/CD tools
Handles both UI and API testing in the same flow

Of course, the learning curve is a bit steeper, and debugging can feel less visual than in Cypress.
But once set up, Playwright runs fast, stable, and parallelized - perfect for large QA ecosystems.

Playwright Documentation

Cypress: Simplicity and Developer Focus

Cypress takes a more visual, front-end–centric approach.
It’s the favorite tool of many UI-focused teams who want immediate feedback, real-time test reloading, and built-in reporting.

Why teams love it:

Visual dashboard with time travel debugging
Auto-screenshots and video recording for each run
Tight integration with front-end frameworks like React, Vue, Angular

Still, it’s more limited when you go beyond browser testing and no true mobile or multi-language support.

Cypress Documentation

Code in Action

Now, let’s look at how both tools handle the same simple login test.
Even with identical goals, their style and flow tell different stories.

Playwright (TypeScript)

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

test('Login flow', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://example.com/login');
  await page.fill('#username', 'tester');
  await page.fill('#password', '12345');
  await page.click('button[type="submit"]');
  await expect(page).toHaveURL(/dashboard/);
});

Cypress (JavaScript)

describe('Login flow', () => {
  it('logs in successfully', () => {
    cy.visit('https://example.com/login');
    cy.get('#username').type('tester');
    cy.get('#password').type('12345');
    cy.get('button[type="submit"]').click();
    cy.url().should('include', 'dashboard');
  });
});

Both frameworks give clean, readable syntax - but Playwright feels like a toolkit for scale, while Cypress feels like a playground for experimentation.

Choosing What Fits You

If your product requires broad coverage, API integrations, and multi-environment testing, go for Playwright.
But if your focus is on UI validation, fast feedback, or developer-friendly debugging, Cypress will make your life much easier.

Follow our social media profiles so you don’t miss new updates: LinkedIn | Dev.to | Medium | Walltech

What Are Locators in Automation?

WallTech — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 16:36:27 +0000

In test automation, locators are essential. They help your autotest find and interact with elements on a web page - like buttons, input fields, links, and more.

A locator is a way to uniquely identify a web element within the DOM (Document Object Model).

Think of it as an address for the element you want your test to interact with - whether it's clicking a button or entering text into a field.

Selector vs Locator - What's the Difference?

Selector: The actual string or pattern used to identify an element (e.g., CSS selector, XPath).
Locator: The abstraction or method that uses a selector to find the element in automation frameworks.

In short:
Selector = the “how”
Locator = the “tool” that uses the selector

Examples in Playwright:
// Using a CSS selector
await page.locator('button.login').click();

// Using a text selector
await page.locator('text=Submit').click();

Why Locators Matter

✔️ Stable locators = reliable tests
❌ Bad locators = flaky tests

Choosing the right locator strategy is key to building robust and maintainable automation!

Follow our social media profiles so you don’t miss new updates: LinkedIn | Dev.to | Medium | Walltech

XPath & CSS Selectors

WallTech — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 19:11:04 +0000

During QA, some testers have to write automated tests. When this happens, it becomes important to find the element on the page for which the action needs to be performed (this could be a click, swipe, etc.).

But it is not enough to simply find the element in the DOM, it is also important to find the correct path to this element, since a correctly selected path to this element is the key to successful stable selectors.

In this post, we will look at two main types: Xpath and CSS.

What Are Selectors?

Selectors are patterns used to identify elements in the DOM (Document Object Model). Think of them as precise directions that tell your automation tool: "Click here," "Type there," or "Check this."

Without good selectors, your tests become flaky and unreliable.

CSS Selectors

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) selectors are primarily designed for styling, but testers use them to locate elements efficiently.

Advantages:

Clean and readable syntax
Fast in execution across most browsers
Well supported by testing frameworks like Cypress and Playwright

Common Examples:

/* By element */
button { }

/* By class */
.button-primary { }

/* By ID */
#login-input { }

/* By attribute */
input[type="email"] { }

/* Nested selector */
form#signup input.password { }

XPath Selectors

XPath (XML Path Language) comes from the XML world but is widely used in test automation for navigating complex DOM trees.

Advantages:

Extremely powerful - can traverse both forward and backward in DOM
Allows searching by text content (great for dynamic UIs)
Works even when attributes/classes are inconsistent

Common Examples:

/* By element */
//button

/* By attribute */
//input[@id='login-input']

/* By text */
//button[text()='Submit']

/* By hierarchy */
//div[@class='form']//input[@type='password']

CSS vs XPath - Which Should You Use?

Readability:

CSS Selector: Simple, concise
XPath: Verbose

Performance:

CSS Selector: Usually faster
XPath: Slightly slower

By Text:

CSS Selector: Not supported
XPath: Supported

Traversal (parent/child/sibling):

CSS Selector: Limited
XPath: Very powerful

Advices for QA:

Start with CSS selectors (cleaner, faster, easier).
Use XPath only when CSS isn't enough (e.g., text-based search or tricky DOM structures).

Best Practices for QA Engineers

Prefer unique IDs or data-test attributes for selectors whenever possible.
Avoid selectors like nth-child() - they often break after UI changes.
Collaborate with developers to introduce test-friendly attributes (data-testid, qa-id).
Keep selectors centralized in your test framework for easy maintenance.

Additional advice

In modern frameworks like Playwright, you can mix strategies:

// Playwright example
await page.locator('input[data-testid="email"]').fill('qa@company.com');

// Or with XPath
await page.locator('//button[text()="Sign in"]').click();

Conclusion

Understanding how Xpath and CSS selectors work is fundamental knowledge for a professional AQA engineer.

The ability to build stable and reliable selectors improves the quality of your automated tests, making them resistant to most changes in the UI of the product being tested.

Keep this in mind the next time you are looking for a selector to automate your test case.

Follow our social media profiles so you don’t miss new updates: LinkedIn | Dev.to | Medium | Walltech

Understanding the DOM

WallTech — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 07:59:37 +0000

In this article, we will look at a fundamental aspect of working with web application testing, namely the DOM

When you start working in QA you may encounter a lot of different terms - test cases, selectors, CSS, XPATH, but what unites all these words is the so-called Document Object Model or DOM for short

What is the DOM?

Picture this: you open a web page. You see a headline, maybe a form, a big shiny button that says “Login.” It looks simple. But behind that clean design is a whole structure - a blueprint, if you will - and that’s the DOM

The browser takes the HTML written by developers and builds this structure. It’s organized like a tree:

Each element on the page (like a heading, paragraph, or button) becomes a node.
These nodes are nested within each other, creating a hierarchy.
That structure is what your browser — and your test scripts — rely on to make sense of the page.

Why Should QA Testers Care?

As a QA tester, especially in automation, your job often involves interacting with these elements. And your ability to do that well depends on how well you understand the DOM.

Here’s what the DOM lets you do:

Find elements to interact with - like a login button or input field.
Check if content is visible or correct - like verifying a success message.
Understand why something might not be working - like a button not responding or a field being hidden. In short, the DOM is your map. Without it, you're testing blind.

A Simple DOM Example

Let’s say this is the HTML for a basic login form:

The DOM representation of this is like a tree:

When your test scenario runs, it “walks” this tree to find and interact with elements. For example, this Python Selenium command:

is telling the browser: “Go to the DOM tree, find the button with the ID loginBtn, and click it.”

And that’s how automation works 🤫

Tips for exploring DOM

Start creating your DOM intuition by doing this:

Open any website, right-click, and choose "Inspect" in your web browser
Hover over the elements in the HTML panel and see how they highlight on the page
Practice identifying tags (<button>, <div>, <input>), attributes (id, class, name), and text content.

And the more time you spend here, the more second nature it becomes.

The DOM isn’t just for developers. It’s one of your most valuable tools as a QA tester. It helps you find bugs, write reliable tests, and understand how a page really works behind the scenes.

At Walltech, we help build strong, lasting QA skills - and it all starts with mastering the basics, like the DOM.

So go ahead. Open up DevTools. Get curious. Every great QA starts right here.

Follow our social media profiles so you don’t miss new updates: LinkedIn | Dev.to | Medium | Walltech

QA Tech Stack 101

WallTech — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 16:14:45 +0000

Understanding your tech stack is the first step toward becoming an effective tester. In this post, we’ll break down the essential tools, compare manual vs. automated testing, and explain why testing environments and browser diversity matter.

🔧 What Tools Do QA Engineers Use?

Depending on the project the set of technologies may vary, but for example in most cases test automation engineers may partially use the same technologies and tools as manual test engineers, so it is important to understand the basic kinds and types of technologies that a novice engineer will have to work with.

Jira Bug tracking and project management system that most of not only QA engineers but all teams work with. In this system, QA engineers can report bugs, track the progress of bug fixes, and check for implemented changes.

Postman Application for working with API requests. Despite the extensive functionality provided by Postman, beginners using this technology can explore all the required parameters of API queries, as well as reproduce the requests used by the application under test.

TestRail / XRAY Tools for tracking and managing test cases. In these applications, QA engineers can create, modify and maintain sets of test cases, change their statuses and combine them into complete test plans for the areas required for testing. It is worth mentioning that such tools make the process of testing much easier.

DevTools The developer panel that is present in every browser. Thanks to it, QA engineers can fine-tune browser environments, view API requests sent by the application, etc. This is an indispensable tool for performing manual testing, and it is one of the most used tools in this sphere

Git / GitHub / GitLab Although most people at the beginning of their careers will conflate the concept of GiHub & GitLab directly with Git as if it were the same technology, in fact GiHub & GitLab are services that work through the use of Git Git is a version control system that allows to manage all changes made to tracked files, while GiHub & GitLab are services that extend the functionality of Git making the process of developing a product collaboratively much easier. It is important to note that manual test engineers may not use these technologies as often as automation engineers, but understanding these technologies and services is important to expand professional skills that directly affect the quality of testing.

CI/CD Tools (Jenkins, GitHub Actions) Used to run your automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline—ensuring that each code update is verified before deployment.

BrowserStack / Sauce Labs Cloud-based platforms that provide real devices and browsers for cross-browser and mobile testing without needing to maintain your own hardware lab. Each tool plays a unique role in your QA process. As you grow in your career, you’ll build familiarity with the ones most relevant to your team and tech stack.

🧪 Manual Testing vs Automated Testing

Both manual and automated testing are fundamental parts of QA. Knowing when to use each is key.

Manual Testing is typically the first step in any QA effort. It involves using the application like a real user would—navigating the UI, entering data, and verifying the results. This is especially useful for exploratory testing, UI validation, and one-time checks.

Automated Testing comes in when you have repetitive tasks—like regression tests or smoke tests—that need to be run consistently. Automation allows you to write scripts (using tools like Selenium or Playwright) that can test the application quickly and reliably.

Pro tip: Manual testing uncovers issues you weren’t expecting. Automation ensures the issues you already know about don’t come back.

The most effective QA engineers use both methods strategically—leveraging the speed of automation while relying on manual testing for nuanced, human-centered insights.

🌍 Understanding Environments and Browsers

Your application may behave differently depending on where – and how – it’s being used. That’s why testing across various environments and browsers is essential.

Testing Environments typically include:

Development (Dev) – Where developers build and initially test their code.

Staging (Pre-prod) – A nearly identical replica of production, used for final validation.

Production – The live version that real users interact with. Each environment can behave slightly differently, especially when it comes to data, performance, or integrations.

Browser Compatibility is another layer of complexity. Not all users are on the same browser or device:

You should test on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and across Windows, macOS, iOS, Android.
Mobile responsiveness is critical—use tools like BrowserStack to simulate real devices.
Failing to test across environments and browsers can lead to bugs slipping through the cracks – especially for layout issues, inconsistent behavior, or browser-specific glitches.

The QA tech stack is your toolkit for ensuring software quality. Whether you’re writing test cases, checking APIs, automating regression suites, or verifying UI designs on multiple browsers – each tool and method plays a role.

By learning how to balance manual and automated testing, and testing thoroughly across environments, you’ll set yourself up for success as a QA professional.

Stay curious, explore new tools, and always test with the end user in mind.

Follow our social media profiles so you don’t miss new updates: LinkedIn | Dev.to | Medium | Walltech

🧪 What Does a QA Engineer Actually Do? A Beginner-Friendly Guide

WallTech — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 11:41:11 +0000

If you're starting your tech journey and wondering what QA (Quality Assurance) is all about – you're not alone.

A lot of people think QA is just about "finding bugs." But in reality, QA is about protecting user experience, ensuring product quality, and building trust in software. It's a role that sits at the intersection of product, development, and the end user.

Let's break down the role in a way that makes sense for beginners 👇

🎯 The Goal of QA: Quality at Every Step

Every piece of software, from mobile apps to large-scale web platforms, goes through countless iterations and updates. QA Engineers are the people who ensure that each of those iterations is as stable, reliable, and user-friendly as possible.

In many ways, a QA Engineer plays the role of both a detective and a guardian – uncovering flaws and preventing issues before users ever notice them.

🧰 What Does a QA Engineer Actually Do?

QA Engineers are involved throughout the software development life cycle – not just at the end. They start by understanding what a new feature is supposed to do. That might mean reviewing requirements, attending meetings with product and development teams, or simply exploring the application to learn how it works.

🧪 Types of Testing You'll Learn as a QA Beginner

🔹 Manual Testing – Testing everything yourself, without code. Great for beginners.
🔹 Automation Testing – Writing code to run repeatable tests faster.
🔹 Functional Testing – Making sure features work as described.
🔹 Regression Testing – Checking old features after a new update.
🔹 Smoke Testing – Quick checks to make sure major functions work.
🔹 UI Testing – Verifying what users see and interact with.
🔹 API Testing – Testing the back-end communication between systems.

💡 In What Case Should You Consider a Career in QA?

If you're someone who enjoys solving problems, spotting inconsistencies, and thinking critically about how things should work – not just how they do – then QA might be the perfect path for you.

You should consider QA if:

You have an eye for detail and enjoy asking "what if?"
You're analytical, curious, and like to understand how systems work
You want a role that combines technical skills, collaboration, and user empathy
You care about the quality and impact of digital products – not just the code behind them

A career in QA is ideal for people who want to break into tech with a strong understanding of how software behaves in the real world, and who find satisfaction in making things better, more reliable, and more user-friendly.

We help teams deliver better software – by thinking critically, testing thoroughly, and speaking up when something doesn't look right. We don't just catch bugs – we prevent them. And we don't just follow checklists – we build confidence in the product.

So, if you've ever broken an app by just "using it normally" – you already think like a QA. 🚀

Follow our social media profiles so you don’t miss new updates: LinkedIn | Dev.to | Medium | Walltech

QA Essentials

WallTech — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:29:01 +0000

Entering the tech industry can seem overwhelming, especially if you're just starting out and trying to figure out where you belong. If you're exploring the world of QA (Quality Assurance) and wondering where to start, how to evolve, or what tools to learn, you're not alone.

We know how important it is to find direction, clarity and real guidance when you enter the QA field.

That's why we've decided to share with you some of the really important notes about QA

Over the next few months, we'll be sharing clear and accessible content for newcomers about:

What QA engineers actually do
How to get started in testing (manually and with automation)
The tools and skills you'll need (Playwright, Selenium, Postman, and others).
Tips on writing test cases, using locators, and avoiding common mistakes
Roadmaps, examples and practical ideas to build your confidence.
If you're changing careers, learning QA from scratch, or just interested in testing, this series is for you.

Modern Understanding of QA

Many people underestimate the role of QA and think it's just an “easy path” into IT. But that's really not the case.

Today's QA professionals are expected to have a highly technical background, a deep understanding of the product, and strong communication skills. A good QA often understands more about the product than anyone else on the team. They work with developers, designers, analysts, and product managers and must speak the language of all of these people.

In today's technology landscape, an experienced QA can be just as tech-aware as a developer. This role requires not only attention to detail, but also a broad set of tools, critical thinking, and the ability to see the whole picture.

Real Knowledge, Real Experience

The material we'll be sharing is based on our years of hands-on experience in real QA projects - from manual testing and automation to test development and communication in agile teams.

Our goal is simple: to give you a realistic, practical idea of what to expect and how to evolve. No outdated theory. Just valuable insights that will help you advance your career with confidence.

If you're ready to take your first (or next) step into QA, follow us 👉 WallTech

Let's make this journey less confusing and more exciting 🎉