Every modern development team and organization needs to know about browser automation. This is because it is one of the most critical aspects of software development that aids in improving the software quality and the speed of delivery. In this context, there are three primary browser automation tools that you need to be aware of – Selenium, Cypress, and Playwright.
An Overview of Automation Testing
Automation testing is crucial as it helps in accelerating the testing process. It examines whether the results generated by specific code lines match the expected results. Automation testing helps improve efficiency, accuracy, coverage of tests, and it is highly cost-effective and reliable.
Keeping this in mind, let us delve deeper into the big three – Selenium, Cypress, and Playwright.
Selenium: The Groundbreaking Automation Tool
Selenium has had a major impact on the automation testing world despite not initially being designed as a testing tool. It boasted features such as multiple language support, an array of browser support, maximum community engagement, and being entirely open source.
Pros of Selenium:
- Multi-language support
- Wide range of browser support
- Large user community
- Recognized standard
Cons of Selenium:
- Slow execution
- Complexity in setting up
- Occurrence of Flaky tests
Cypress: The Developer-Focused Testing Tool
Cypress is entirely focused on developers and was built with the aim of improving the reliability and speed of automated testing. It has a completely different approach to testing as compared to Selenium, and runs inside the browser for executing precise automation.
Pros of Cypress:
- Focused on front end developers
- Provides detailed error messages
- Automatic recording of video on test run
Cons of Cypress:
- Limited browser support
- The only language supported is JavaScript
- Certain functionality requires relevant plugin knowledge
Playwright: The Latest in Browser Automation
Playwright is a new cross-browser automation library developed for end-to-end testing. It provides the ability to emulate mobile browsers and comes with multiple benefits like supporting multi-tab and multi-user scenarios, and provides new browser contexts for each test.
Pros of Playwright:
- Supports multiple programming languages
- Can emulate mobile browsers
- Auto-wait functionality
Cons of Playwright:
- Smaller community
- Complexity in API
- Less intuitive syntax for beginners
Comparison of Selenium, Cypress, and Playwright
| Feature | Selenium | Cypress | Playwright |
| — | — | — | — |
| Development and History | Developed in 2004 at ThoughtWorks, Selenium WebDriver later followed it. It has a large ecosystem and is a W3C standard. | Started in 2015, built to improve reliability and speed in automated testing. Runs inside the browser. | Developed by Microsoft in 2019, aims for e2e testing and auto-waits for elements to be ready. |
| Language Support | Supports multiple languages like Java, C#, Python, Ruby, and JavaScript. | JavaScript only. | Supports multiple languages like TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, and C#. |
| Browser Support | Supports many browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE, and Opera. | Limited browser support. | Supports Chromium, WebKit, and Firefox and can emulate natives mobile browsers. |
| Community | Has the largest community with plenty of resources for solutions. | Over 5 million weekly downloads and over 43,000 GitHub stars. | Relatively smaller community due to recent market debut. |
| Drawbacks | Slow execution can lead to flaky tests and complexity in setup. | Limitations require knowledge of relevant plugin. | API may appear complex to beginners. |
| Additional Features | Can be extended with drivers, bindings, plugins, and frameworks, being a W3C standard. | Provides a real-time view of tests with a simple yet powerful API along with a rich library of plugins. | Ability to emulate mobile browsers, auto-wait functionality, can support multi-tab and multi-user scenarios. |
The Best Advice for Automating Your Tests
The choice of automation tool largely depends on your team structure and the project requirements. If you are a tester, you might want to start with Selenium. For front-end developers, Cypress might be more suitable. SDETs might be more inclined towards Playwright.
Before you make a decision, it is always recommended to run a 2-week proof-of-concept with any tool involving the whole team to see how it performs in your environment.
tags: #Selenium #Cypress #Playwright #AutomationTesting #2023FutureTrends
[Reference Link](!https://testguild.com/top-3-automation-testing-tools/)