5 Best Selenium Alternatives to Try in 2020

Selenium is a widely-used user-friendly portable software testing tool. Generally used for testing web applications, it is popular mainly because it is open-source and thus free of cost. Users can access it to test their apps through browser automation. For which, Selenium acts as an Application Program Interface or API. It is used for both regression and functional testing of apps, supporting many programming languages like Ruby, Perl, Python, PHP and Java.

It is a cross-platform tool known for supporting cross-browser testing. This means it can be used across various operating systems on several different browsers like Chrome, Safari and Opera, among others. And finally, to generate the statistics and reports of the testings, it can be integrated with frameworks like JUnit, NUnit and TestNG.

So why look for an alternative?

Certain features of the Selenium automation testing tool act as a hindrance rather than a helper. Firstly, it can only test web applications and is unsuitable for mobile applications, desktop apps or any other standalone apps. And since it is an open-source platform you cannot ask for nominal or technical support from anywhere. You’re on your own. A cross-platform and multiple device tests is a very lucrative feature of Selenium. But to use it, you need some prerequisite knowledge without which the test takes way longer to set up and run. And finally, you cannot execute image testing through this software testing tool.

Thus, here are some alternatives to Selenium.

• Katalon Studio

This is a complete cross-platform test automation solution which can be used for web testing on all kinds of devices. Katalon Studio is an easy-to-use, flexible testing tool that could be the answer to a beginner’s problems. Since it is very neatly built, keeping in mind developers with not much coding skills, it changes the way a developer tests their applications. Based on the frameworks of Selenium and Appium, it eliminates the technical complexities posed by other testing software. Those who aren’t that technically advanced can build up new test cases with much more ease since the recording and keywords capabilities have been provided. And for experienced testers, the well-built IDE to formulate tests with scripting methods comes in handy.

• PhantomJS

An open-source, scriptable headless browser which aims to automate web page collaboration, it is a powerful tool for testing which supports different web standards. You can use it for a unit as well as smoke testing. You can also monitor, analyze and inspect the network traffic. It saves one-third of the testing time and works on Windows, MAC, Linux, among others.

• Subject7

It is known for providing end-to-end test automation capabilities by using a certain sequence of commands. You can access these commands via a user-friendly web interface. It mimics user actions; every command given subsides the complexities of other industry-standard testing tools. Specifically targeted for non-coders, it integrates with Jenkins, REST capable DevOps pipeline. Subject7 requires no set-up at all and scales execution leveraging AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

• Screenster

Works as a visual regression testing tool for sites and applications. It comes with automatic timeout management and performs User Interface automation testing. Interestingly, it also promises you ten times more productivity than all other alternatives listed here. It works great for non-technical developers, and many of the features available aren’t present in other testing tools. Without putting in any codes, a user can automate the UI test cases. A local server can be used, or it can be done on the cloud. But at the same time, you have the same features available with Selenium like parallel test execution, and the learning curve here is much smoother. But this is only free as a monthly trial while Selenium is free of cost.

• WiTestCraft

Another cloud-based continuous test automation solution, it creates a code-less Selenium experience for the user. As you create the test scenario, a code gets automatically generated. It provides everything that Selenium does, but without any codes. There is virtually no learning curve, and the application does most of the stuff by itself. If there are changes to be made to apps under testing, the automated tests easily repel breakage. There’s also the feature of re-binding and fixing a broken test during runtime, reducing automation maintenance costs.

Jackson Henry. I’m a writer living in USA. I am a fan of technology, arts, and reading. I’m also interested in writing and education. You can read my blog with a click on the button above.

Source-  Best Selenium Alternatives