Selenium is automation tool used to automate web application. Before we deep dive into the topic of selenium and its usage, let us have a look into quick recap on testing and basic of automation testing.
Software Testing: Software testing is a process of checking whether the developed is right and to check we developed right product.
Without software testing the steadiness and stability of the product in the market is question mark. We do test software in two major ways based on execution:
* Manual testing
* Automation testing
Well, manual testing is testing done without any involvement of automation tools, solely executed by QA tester.
On the other hands Automation testing is performed using test tools and test scripts.
Automation testing is the process using software tools to execute the testcases, compare actual and expected results and generate reports -- without human intervention
Why We Go for Automation Testing
1. Repetition
When the same test cases need to be run multiple times (e.g., regression testing).
2. Time Efficiency
Manual testing of large applications is time-consuming. Automation saves time during repeated cycles.
3. Accuracy
Reduces human error in executing the same steps multiple times.
4. Continuous Integration (CI/CD)
Automation supports DevOps pipelines — automated builds, testing, and deployment.
5. Performance Testing
For load or stress testing with thousands of users — impossible to do manually.
6. Regression Testing
When new features are added, automation helps ensure old features still work correctly.
When We Go for Automation Testing
Advantages of automation Testing:
-Executes hundreds of tests quickly
-Test scripts can be reused across builds
-No human error during execution
-Can test across browsers, devices, environments
-Integrates with CI/CD tools like Jenkins
-Finds regressions early in the pipeline
Disadvantages of automation Testing:
-Requires tool setup, scripting time, and skilled testers
-Scripts break when UI or logic changes
-UI look & feel, usability testing need human eyes
-Need programming knowledge
-May fail due to environment/config issues rather than bugs
Common Automation Tools
Web/UI Testing → Selenium, Playwright, Cypress,Tosca
API Testing → Postman, RestAssured, Karate
Unit Testing → Pytest, JUnit, TestNG
Performance Testing → JMeter, LoadRunner
CI/CD Integration → Jenkins, GitHub Actions
History of Selenium
In 2004 at ThoughtWorks, Jason Huggins building the Core mode as "JavaScriptTestRunner" for the testing of an internal Time and Expenses application.
ThoughtWorkers in various offices around the world picked up Selenium for commercial projects and contributed back to Selenium from the lessons learned on these projects. Mike Williams, Darrell DeBoer, and Darren Cotterill all helped with the increasing the capabilities and the robustness of it.
Selenium Ecosystem
Over the last decade, a large ecosystem of Open-Source projects have sprouted up around Selenium. This page attempts to capture some of those projects that make use of Selenium WebDriver as a central part of what they do.
Selenium can be extended in different ways. Here are a number of drivers, bindings, plugins, and frameworks created and maintained by third parties.
Frameworks
Programming languages are supported through Selenium drivers. These are libraries made for each language that expose commands from the Selenium API natively in the form of methods/functions.
Selenium is often used for automating web applications for testing purposes, but it does not include a testing framework. Some testing frameworks that can be used with Selenium are listed below.
Helium, SeleniumBase ,SeleniumLibrary ,WebdriverIO, etc,.
Components of Selenium suite
Selenium 4 Architecture:
Selenium 4 introduced a simplified and modernized architecture compared to Selenium 3.
It fully adopts the W3C WebDriver Protocol, removing the older JSON Wire Protocol — this means faster, more stable, and consistent communication between Selenium and browsers.
Real-world explanation of how Selenium works
In real time selenium is like a helper/robot assistant which helps us to execute testcases based on instruction(script)on webpage tirelessly with less time.
Step By Step Working
Step 1:
Test Scripts written by us write a program say for example:
-Open chrome browser
-Enter url https://amazon.com
-Navigate to login page
-Enter UserName
Sample code in python:
driver.get(https://amazon.com)
driver.find_element(By.ID,login.click()
Step 2:
Selenium sends commands to the driver
Selenium does not directly talk to the browser. It gets the help of browser driver which interacts with browser.
For Chrome → ChromeDrive
For Firefox → GeckoDriver
For Edge → EdgeDriver
Step 3:
The browser driver directly interacts with the browser.
Using the W3C WebDriver protocol, the driver tells the browser what to do — “open this page,” “click this button,” etc.
Step 4:
The real browser (like Chrome) gets command from driver and performs the actions exactly as a human would — open the page, type, click, scroll.
**Step 5:
**Response is sent back.
Once done, the browser tells Selenium whether the action was successful or failed.
Selenium then reports the result — pass, fail, or error.
In Human Terms
Selenium Client = You, the tester, giving instructions.
Browser Driver = Translator between you and the browser.
Browser = Worker that performs the tasks.
W3C Protocol = The common language both use to talk correctly.
Why Selenium Is Preferred Over Other Automation Tools
1. Open Source and Free
Selenium is 100% free — no license or subscription required.
This makes it ideal for startups and enterprises looking to reduce testing costs.
Other tools like UFT (Unified Functional Testing) or TestComplete are commercial and expensive.
2. Multi-Browser Support
Selenium supports all major browsers — Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Opera.
Most other tools are limited or need plugins for browser compatibility.
Example:
You can run the same Selenium script on Chrome, Edge, or Firefox without changing your test logic.
3. Cross-Platform Compatibility
Selenium runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
This cross-platform support makes it versatile for CI/CD pipelines.
4. Multi-Language Support
Selenium supports multiple programming languages, including:
Java
Python
C#
JavaScript
Ruby
Kotlin
Other tools (like Cypress) support mainly JavaScript, which limits flexibility.
5. Integration with DevOps & Testing Tools
Selenium integrates easily with tools like:
Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Docker → for CI/CD
TestNG, Pytest, JUnit → for test management
Maven/Gradle → for build automation
Allure, Extent Reports → for reporting
This makes Selenium part of a complete automated testing ecosystem.
6. Supports Parallel & Remote Execution
With Selenium Grid, tests can run in parallel on multiple browsers and systems — saving time.
You can run tests remotely on cloud platforms like BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, or LambdaTest.
7. Large Community Support
Being the oldest and most popular open-source tool, Selenium has massive community support.
8. Supports Multiple Frameworks
You can integrate Selenium with:
BDD frameworks → Cucumber, Behave
Data-driven testing → Excel, CSV, or databases
Hybrid frameworks → combining Page Object Model, keyword-driven, and data-driven approaches
Comparison of selenium with other tools:
Selenium 3 versus Selenium 4 comparison
Relevance of selenium automation using python
Selenium with Python is preferred because it’s free, easy to learn, fast to develop, cross-platform, and integrates smoothly with modern test frameworks and DevOps pipelines — giving you flexibility and productivity that many other languages or tools lack.
In real-world test automation:
-Most organizations have mixed environments (web, API, database).
-Python makes it easy to handle end-to-end testing in a single framework.
-Selenium + Python + Pytest + Allure forms a lightweight, robust, and maintainable automation framework.
-It’s ideal for Agile and CI/CD-based teams that push frequent updates.
On conclusion from above advantages, Hence Selenium with python framework preferred over other automation tools and programing language
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