Selenium Grid in the Cloud

For our project perspective, we have selected Selenium HQ because it needs to be UI based testing and multiple browser testing. For the UI web browser, we normally use Selenium HQ because wait conditions and these features are very good in the dropdown and handling the grids and tables. These features of Selenium HQ are very beneficial when compared to other tools. As we are an advertisement firm, we have some grids in our application. To manage those grids and shadowing of the applications, these tasks can be accomplished with Selenium HQ. Because of these capabilities, we selected Selenium HQ, which we determined was a suitable application.

The best features in Selenium HQ are particularly for testing. While setting up Selenium HQ in the Docker container and pushing those images into AWS, that is the actual flow. Selenium HQ handles WebDriver automation, driver management, and parallel execution in the Selenium HQ Hub. These three features are very beneficial for test automation.

The locators, dropdowns, buttons, and everything are handled effectively by Selenium HQ. Additionally, Selenium HQ is open source, making it accessible to anyone.

Some improvements can be implemented as compared to Playwright, which is why I rate it seven out of ten.

I have been using Selenium HQ for six and a half years.

It is stable. I have never encountered any concerning situations with Selenium HQ.

I am not currently doing Selenium HQ parallel execution, but I have done it previously. For multiple browser testing in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, without parallel execution, it would take half a day. When using Selenium HQ Hub for parallel execution, I can complete it within a two-hour timespan.

I currently use Jenkins and Maven for framework development. The flow involves creating the project with Maven, and once test case execution is completed locally, we push the jobs to Jenkins. It automatically triggers the executions in Jenkins so everyone in the team can see the execution report and status.

I would rate the solution at 60% out of 100. Previously, troubleshooting was difficult. When test cases fail for various reasons, logs cannot explain everything, but logging is very important to get the failure results. For logging, Amazon Q will suggest where the log code needs to be included. In Jenkins, when the code is executed and results are viewed, we can easily identify where the error occurred and troubleshoot efficiently, reducing time by two to three hours.

I can recommend many packages with Selenium HQ. Wait conditions and numerous features are available to use. I recommend most of them to individuals. My overall rating for Selenium HQ is 7 out of 10.

I use Selenium HQ  in my software testing workflows with applications on Microsoft Technologies, as well as Java-based applications. When our pipeline runs, I integrate these Selenium automated test packs as part of the pipeline.

Once the software packages are deployed on a designated server, I launch the test scripts using Selenium HQ . All the capabilities are added on the dedicated server, and then it executes, and then we get the results, so it's all an automated process.

The challenges I faced while integrating Selenium HQ into my existing systems relate to historical data, which requires going back six years. I have to traverse if there were any challenges because I am sure if there were any, they must have been documented in our ALM  documents.

The multi-browser support of Selenium HQ impacts my testing process primarily since it is being used in Edge and Chrome browsers. It all depends on our customers. I haven't heard of any challenges with other browsers such as Opera or Mozilla Firefox, as these two browsers are what we primarily use.

When we were doing these tests manually, it took several hours of effort, and those hours, when counted on the basis of person days, used to be maybe six or seven months of effort, which we can now do every day by running the pipeline. This has definitely saved a lot of money for us.

In terms of drawbacks or downsides and room for improvements in Selenium HQ, there is the data load which we use for testing the applications.

Currently, we are using Excel as our data source. I don't know if we have that capability to provide different data sources such as SQL Server , CSV, or maybe some other databases, so that kind of capability would be great.

I have been using Selenium HQ for the last six years, and it's stable with a rating of nine or ten.

It was easy to deploy Selenium HQ. Initially, we had some challenges, but we overcame all those challenges.

Selenium HQ is a scalable solution; it has been in production for the last two years, but I have been working on it for the last six years, so it is definitely scalable. We started with something, and now we are at a level where it's a very important part of our deployment life cycle.

I would rate the scalability of Selenium HQ as an eight.

We haven't had any requirement for technical support because I have people who are technically equipped. The marketplace community and forums are what we browse and look after, and we have found solutions whenever we tried to find anything, so we didn't reach out to the technical support team yet.

Positive

I was using SmartBear in my previous organization, but not now.

We did try the SoapUI  from SmartBear, but there were limitations that we couldn't manage at that specific point in time, which is why we moved over to Selenium HQ.

The deployment took only a few hours.

I did the installation all by myself without any help.

I would give around 50 to 55% as the metrics for efficiencies gained.

I will give an eight for my satisfaction with the pricing and licensing costs of Selenium HQ.

I use both on-premises and cloud versions of Selenium HQ.

I am not really working with this product right now.

AI technology is not something which I have initiated yet, but I think there will be an option; I haven't explored that, but this question would require me to go back to my QA team.

I do recommend Selenium HQ to other organizations because we are in a business that is primarily based on B2B interface. I recommend it to our customers and partner network, and if someone asks for any automation or performance load test tool, Selenium HQ is what we recommend. There is also a free version, Selenium WebDriver, so people can just go and start their automation journey using these Selenium WebDrivers.

I would give the overall final rating for Selenium HQ a nine.

The primary use case for Selenium HQ  is for automation in testing processes. We are currently using Selenium HQ  for synthetic data generation, extended with third-party tools like LambdaTest , and integrated with Azure DevOps . This setup is part of our test plan and pipeline integration.

Selenium HQ is a widely used open source tool that makes it easier to understand and automate websites. It is suitable for all functional business scenarios and can be easily incorporated into workflows. New features in Selenium HQ make object identification easier without reliance on XPath and CSS. The tool offers mouse-click actions and supports customizable and user-friendly recent libraries. Additionally, Selenium HQ supports multiple browsers via grid hosting and offers dynamic configuration setup for testing across Chrome, Edge, and Internet Explorer.

Selenium HQ could improve by including a robust reporting framework, eliminating the need for external frameworks. The tool could simplify object identification, enabling users to generate XPaths without requiring detailed DOM understanding. Additionally, an automatic update mechanism for Selenium HQ would be beneficial, eliminating the need for manual downloads and updates of browser drivers when new versions are released.

I have been working with Selenium HQ since it started, around 2012 or 2013. This translates to approximately twelve to fourteen years of experience.

I have not noticed any performance issues or limitations with Selenium HQ regarding stability. However, I might need to check with my team to confirm this as I am handling multiple projects.

I have not noticed any issues with the scalability of Selenium HQ. We can execute thousands of test cases weekly, and our automation coverage using Selenium HQ is approximately eighty-five percent.

I have not had the need to escalate questions to Selenium HQ tech support recently, as open community support is widely available and has been sufficient for our needs.

Before starting to use Selenium HQ, we used QTP  and Coded UI for automation. We switched to Selenium HQ as it started evolving due to its open source nature and increasing capabilities.

The initial setup for Selenium HQ was straightforward for me due to my extensive experience. However, the lack of automatic updates and the need for manually keeping browser drivers like ChromeDriver updated is an area for potential improvement.

Based on my experience, I would recommend Selenium HQ to others, especially for projects where budget constraints exist and web-based applications require multi-browser support. I rate Selenium HQ between eight and nine out of ten.

I primarily use Selenium HQ as an open-source tool to test my applications. I create test scripts using Java as the programming language, then run those test scripts on my machines with the application in the background. We run our tests on multiple browsers and generate reports to compare application performance on different browsers.

It is a solution that automates your browsers with web driver, which drives the native browser. It includes Selenium IDE, where we can put out all the commands and the control flows. The entire end-to-end application testing happens using Selenium.

The most valuable features of Selenium HQ include WebDriver and the remote framework, which is compatible with Selenium and is mostly helpful for me. Selenium HQ's compatibility with multiple browsers impacts my testing efficiency significantly, as it allows me to run tests on various browsers and generate comparative analysis reports. Selenium automates browsers easily with its web driver, and Selenium IDE facilitates end-to-end testing with its command and control flows.

Documentation is good, but it lacks real-time examples. Providing real-time examples would be really helpful. Some parts are not automatable, especially CAPTCHAs and complex applications where objects are not identified properly. This requires manual intervention and object identification adjustments, which can be time-consuming.

I have been working with Selenium HQ for two years.

Selenium HQ is quite stable. The downtime issues are generally related to the machines, not the application itself. The software stops working only if the machine on which it is running goes down.

The scalability of Selenium is rated around eight to eight point five. It is very beneficial for running tests on multiple browsers and different machines, including Windows and VDI machines.

There is comprehensive documentation available online for Selenium HQ. Additionally, internet communities respond quickly to queries, usually within one or two hours, providing good support. Kubernetes services are also an available support resource.

Positive

We used Windrunner and HP Quality Center long ago. Then we switched to Selenium because it's easy to understand, code, and install. It is also mostly free, making it very helpful.

The initial setup is rated eight to nine on ease, as it's simple to install and use. If coding is done in a proper methodology, object identification becomes easier. The whole setup on a machine barely takes ten minutes.

Deployment can be managed by a single person who can run multiple tests, thereby saving on human resources.

Selenium is easy to install and mostly free, so there's no need for a license. This lack of costs makes it an attractive option.

We evaluated Windrunner and HP Quality Center before choosing Selenium.

Selenium is easy to use, with a straightforward setup and many reusable features. It is advisable for new users to explore its features and leverage its form and page update model capabilities. For example, maintenance is simplified because changes made to a base function automatically reflect on all pages.

Selenium's major use cases are UI and web automation, primarily for the front end of a website. We also use it for API automation using other libraries called RestAssured. The programming language can be Java, C Sharp, or anything, but we are mostly using Java. For mobile automation, we use Selenium with APM .

Productivity-wise, Selenium helps us in regression testing, which we need to repeat every sprint and during every release cycle. Though development may take some time, we are now utilizing AI tools like ChatGPT , which makes it faster to develop the code. Cost-wise, it provides savings because it's open source, so we do not have to bear any cost of the tool itself.

Selenium is an open-source tool. It provides the flexibility to automate anything and everything. You can build custom libraries and integrate them with third-party libraries across the globe. It gives freedom to integrate with any other tool and build your custom solutions. It also integrates well with test management and project management tools like Jira , Manta, and Azure DevOps .

In the future, Selenium should be able to automate desktop-based applications, as it is not currently able to handle non-web-based, Windows-based applications. Additionally, there is a need for Selenium to be more user-friendly, allowing users from all backgrounds to automate test cases without requiring too much coding knowledge.

Selenium has been in use for more than 14 years.

For stability, I would rate it a seven out of ten.

I believe Selenium is scalable, and I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

There is a community in which you can post your questions, and you do get answers there.

Positive

Recently, I worked with Katalon. Then, I worked with WebDriverIO with Node.js.

The setup experience is much easier these days. You no longer need to manually download dependent files like JAR files. You can easily go to the Maven repository and get all of the dependencies. Setup has become more straightforward, and I would rate it around seven out of ten.

Being an open-source tool, Selenium's cost is completely free, and there are no licensing fees.

In addition to Selenium, we are using Playwright and Myspro for mobile automation in different projects.

For users starting with automation, I recommend learning Selenium with any language they're comfortable with, such as Java, C Sharp, Python, JavaScript, or Ruby on Rails. It sets up a foundation for any tester wanting to explore automation testing.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.