Selenium vs. Cypress vs. TestGrid

The internet is the most reliable source of information for most people when they are planning to purchase a product or looking for a service. This shift in consumer trends in recent years makes a website a necessity for any person or company if they wish to expand their market reach. However, guaranteeing that your website or web application is excellent in functionality and meets all the requirements from the users’ point of view is important. With millions of websites being launched every year, if your website is not good enough, users will not use it and give you bad ratings, which is not good for your business. According to Forbes, 88% of users will not come back to your website if they had a bad experience.

Web testing with the help of an automated testing tool is, therefore, inevitable if you want users to remain on your website and interact with it. Selenium and Cypress are two testing tools that are among the most popular web testing tools due to their strengths compared to other tools. But deciding between Selenium vs Cypress might be challenging due to their distinct capabilities.

This article will make it simpler for you to decide with a list of the features and advantages of both tools below, as well as a third option, TestGrid, which is a codeless automation tool that most organizations use for testing websites and web apps.

Selenium for Web Testing

Selenium is an open-source automation tool suite most commonly used for testing web applications. It is used to automate testing in many platforms as well as different browsers. Selenium has these components in its suite for testing: Selenium IDE, Selenium RC, Selenium WebDriver, and Selenium Grid. Selenium WebDriver was designed to enhance web application testing. Due to these benefits it has become a very popular tool for many developers and testers.

Pros of using Selenium for web testing:

• Cross-browser compatibility: The Selenium WebDriver supports all major browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, IE, and Edge.

• Support for multiple frameworks: It can be easily integrated with TestNG, Jenkins, or even Docker. Hence, it can be easily added to the CI/CD chain, make the processes automated, and increase the development rate.

• Parallel testing: You can carry out all the testing in different environments and browsers simultaneously, thus saving time.

• Supports multiple programming languages: Selenium WebDriver provides support for all popular programming languages, such as PHP, Java, Python, or JavaScript. It provides developers with an opportunity to code in languages of their choice. However, there are also some drawbacks to using Selenium. Let us check them now:

Cons of testing with Selenium

• Needs additional setups: Additional integration with third-party libraries and frameworks is necessary for efficient testing.

• Not a comprehensive solution: It has no in-built solutions for specific tasks like OS-based popup handling, Basic Authentication, or API-level tasks.

• Lacks detailed reporting features: It does not have rich and intuitive test reporting capabilities with a visual representation.

Cypress for Web Testing

This is an open-source testing framework, which is ideal for testing modern web applications. This feature-rich framework is built on JavaScript and makes testing less complicated and more comfortable. Cypress testing library has a BDD/TDD assertion library and a browser that can be paired with any JavaScript testing framework.

Pros of using Cypress for web testing:

Automatic waiting: As Cypress waits for the elements to become visible, for instance, waiting for the DOM to load or an animation to finish, testing is less problematic and more effective.
Effective debugging: It takes screenshots during test execution in case of test failure.
Quick set-up: In contrast to other tools, Cypress can be set up quickly, and testers can begin automating their tests without any delay.
Real browser testing: It executes tests in a real browser environment, emulating real users’ actions as opposed to other tools that imitate browser behavior.
Now, let us examine some of the issues that testers encounter when running Cypress testing.

Cons of testing with Cypress

No in-built support for parallel testing: When running tests across multiple environments and browsers at once, Cypress needs a number of configurations and setups.
Lacks support for multiple tabs: As it runs within a browser window, it does not have support when testing cases that require the use of multiple tabs or windows.
Limited support for testing of mobile devices: It is mainly designed for web application testing and, therefore, lacks the capability to support testing of mobile applications.

TestGrid for Web Appli cation Testing

TestGrid is an AI-based codeless testing platform that has been developed to make web testing easier and more efficient. With its powerful cloud-based infrastructure, It allows you to test your website across a variety of mobile devices, browsers and operating systems, making sure your visitors have a consistent experience. TestGrid can assist testers in identifying bugs and defects in the early development phase to make security, functionality, and user experience the best.

Advantages of using TestGrid for web testing

• Cross-browser and cross-device testing: You can test your web application across different browsers and gadgets and be certain that it will work the same way in any environment.

• Secure cloud infrastructure: TestGrid’s cloud infrastructure provides the highest level of security to prevent leakage or misuse of information.

• Real device testing: The platform provides a large number of real devices and browsers for testing your website in the cloud, guaranteeing a 100% real user experience.

• Simplified testing process: The Record and Playback feature enables testers to record critical test scenarios in minutes and lets you edit or reuse them as required.

• Codeless automation: Testing is as simple as just writing test cases in English, BDD, and CSV and copying them to TestGrid’s AI portal to generate test cases

• A single platform for all your needs: Do all the necessary tests, such as API testing, cross-browser testing, or visual testing, and obtain valuable performance data on your application without additional app configurations.

• Comprehensive real-time reporting: It provides detailed reports and analysis of the application under test and provides the exact location of the problem to the testers and developers.

• Parallel testing: Execute automated cross-browser testing simultaneously across multiple OS and browsers to save time.

As you can see, all three platforms, Selenium, Cypress, and TestGrid, have their unique strengths. Your final choice should be made with regard to your budget, specific test needs, and final goal.

Conclusion

Regardless of the web testing tool that you decide to use, your aim should be to provide your end users with a smooth and consistent experience regardless of the device or operating system they are using. In addition to enhancing the quality of your website, you are also minimizing possible issues, such as loss of data, low levels of user engagement, and loss of confidence in your brand.

By focusing on web testing, you can provide your customers with a website that will meet their expectations, thus safeguarding your reputation and your business.

Source: This article was originally published on Medium.