testRigor vs. Selenium vs. Playwright

Selenium

The first thing anyone venturing into software automation testing hears about is Selenium. It is the OG in the testing space and, to date, is widely used. It is an open-source testing framework that can handle cross-browser testing.

If you take a closer look at Selenium, it is a suite of components.

• Selenium IDE (Integrated Development Environment): This component supports plugins for Firefox and Chrome browsers. The record-and-play capability allows testers to create test cases easily.
• Selenium RC (Remote Control): This component allows the creation of test cases in different languages like C#, Ruby, Perl, PHP, Python, JavaScript, and Java. It enables controlling web browsers locally or on other remote computers.
• Selenium WebDriver: People usually refer to this component when discussing using Selenium. Using it, you can execute commands directly in the browser. Support for different browsers exists here, making cross-browser support possible. Various programming languages like Java, C#, Perl, Ruby, PHP, Python, and JavaScript are supported.
• Selenium Grid: Usually used in conjunction with Selenium RC, it supports parallel execution of test cases.

What does Selenium offer?

Selenium offers a lot. Here’s a list.

• Cross-browser compatibility: Selenium supports all major browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari, allowing tests to be run across different browsers to ensure consistent behavior.
• Language support: It offers bindings for several programming languages, including Java, C#, Python, Ruby, and JavaScript, allowing testers to write tests in the language they are most comfortable with.
• Multiple possible integrations: Selenium can be integrated with various testing frameworks, such as JUnit, TestNG, PyTest, and others, enabling developers to structure their tests according to their project’s needs.
• Community and ecosystem: Selenium is open-source and has a large and active community. Numerous resources, plugins, and integrations are available that enhance its capabilities and make it easier to start and solve problems.
• Web-based testing: Selenium WebDriver allows direct calls to the browser using each browser’s native support for automation, providing a more realistic testing scenario by simulating real-user actions.
• Parallel test execution: Selenium Grid enables parallel test execution across different machines and browsers simultaneously, significantly reducing the time required for executing test suites.

Limitations of Selenium

Though Selenium has been upgraded, there are limitations to what it can offer.

• Learning curve: Selenium requires coding knowledge and also has a complicated setup. In diverse teams where technical and non-technical teams work together to ensure QA, having this language barrier poses a problem.
• Web-centric: Selenium is explicitly designed for automating web applications and does not support desktop or mobile application testing directly, though mobile testing can be achieved through integrations with tools like Appium.
• No built-in reporting and test management: Selenium lacks reporting and test management capabilities. Testers must often integrate it with other tools like TestNG, JUnit, or third-party solutions for comprehensive reporting and management.
• No dynamic content handling: Handling highly dynamic web content and real-time applications can be complex and require advanced programming skills to manage AJAX and JavaScript-heavy applications effectively.
• No official support: Being an open-source project, Selenium does not have official support. Users rely on community forums and discussions for troubleshooting and advice, which may not always yield immediate or practical solutions.
• Browser control and performance issues: Selenium tests can sometimes be slower compared to tests run directly on a server or through unit testing frameworks, especially when running an extensive suite of tests or when using Selenium Grid over a network with limited resources.

Playwright

Playwright is another popular tool that is widely used for automated testing. It is an open-source automation library developed by Microsoft for testing web applications. It enables developers and testers to write scripts that can automate actions in web browsers, much like Selenium, but with a focus on modern web application features and performance.

Playwright offers a cross-browser testing solution that supports Chromium (Chrome and Edge), Firefox, and WebKit (Safari) tests. It’s designed to work with Node.js and supports testing in JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#, and Java.

What does Playwright offer?

Here’s what Playwright offers testers for automation testing.

• Cross-browser support: Playwright supports all the major web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge, enabling tests to be run across these browsers with the same API.
• Headless and headed modes: It allows running browsers in headless mode for faster test execution during development or in CI/CD pipelines, as well as in headed mode for debugging.
• Auto-waiting: Playwright automatically waits for elements to be ready before performing actions, reducing flakiness and the need for manual waits or sleep in the tests.
• Multi-context testing: Playwright can create multiple browser contexts within the same browser instance, enabling isolated parallel test sessions that mimic incognito sessions, which helps test scenarios involving multiple users or sessions.
• Rich set of APIs: It provides APIs for handling downloads, uploads, web sockets, geolocation, permissions, and more, covering a wide range of web application testing needs.
• Integration with testing frameworks: Though Playwright comes with its own test runner, it can also be integrated with popular testing frameworks and CI/CD tools, offering flexibility in how tests are written and executed.
• Visual testing: Offers built-in support for screenshot testing and visual comparisons, making it easier to catch UI regressions.
• Mobile emulation: Playwright can emulate mobile devices in web browsers, meaning it can simulate the dimensions, touch events, user agents, and other characteristics of mobile devices when running tests on web applications. This allows developers and testers to mimic the behavior of their web applications on mobile devices directly within the browser environment.
• Network interception: It offers powerful capabilities to mock network requests, inspect outgoing requests, and simulate various network conditions and responses.

Limitations of Playwright

As powerful as Playwright’s offerings may seem, they still have certain limitations.

• Learning curve: For those new to automated testing or coming from other tools like Selenium, there may be a learning curve to understand Playwright’s API and concepts. Adapting to all the coding to write test scripts may not bode well for your non-technical team members.
• Limited support for older browsers: Playwright focuses on modern browsers and might not be the best tool for testing applications on older versions of browsers or on browsers not supported by Playwright.
• Growing community and ecosystem: While growing rapidly, Playwright’s community and ecosystem are smaller than Selenium’s, which has been around much longer. This may affect the availability of third-party integrations and resources for solving specific testing challenges.
• Incomplete mobile testing capabilities: Playwright does not natively support testing mobile applications like native Android or iOS apps. However, it can emulate mobile devices in browser contexts for web applications.
• API differences across languages: While Playwright supports multiple programming languages, there may be slight differences in API implementations or feature parity across these languages, potentially affecting consistency in multi-language environments.

testRigor

With the advancements in the testing field, it is becoming easier to make quality assurance holistic by involving technical and non-technical stakeholders. As good as Selenium and Playwright are, they have challenges that can be easily overcome by opting for an AI-based test automation tool. Moreover, these advancements also aid cost-cutting and higher productivity in organizations.

One such powerful tool that leverages the benefits of these technologies is testRigor. This tool is agnostic to the underlying codebase and focuses on testing the app like a human tester would.

What does testRigor offer?

You can do a lot with testRigor.

• No-code tool: In testRigor, tests are written using plain English commands. This opens up the floor for the entire team to author tests (including manual testers and even business folks) and significantly increases the test creation speed.
• Record-and-playback tool: You also have a record-and-playback tool that can further speed up test creation for newcomers. Since the recorded tests will be in the same plain English format, it becomes viable for anyone to edit and maintain when desired.
• No flakey tests: Test maintenance is a pain in automation testing. testRigor understands this and does not make you dig out XPaths and CSS tags to identify UI elements. With this dependence on implementation details gone, test creation and maintenance becomes easy. All you need to do is mention where you see the UI element on the screen. You can click on a button below the title by simply writing click “button” below “Title”
• Cross-browser and cross-platform testing: The tool allows you to perform cross-browser and cross-platform tests efficiently.
• Accessibility testing: testRigor supports accessibility testing along with other forms of testing. This comes in handy when assessing application compliance in specific industries.
• Test all kinds of apps: With testRigor, you can test web apps across all platforms and even native mobile, native desktop, and hybrid mobile apps.
• Parallel execution support: The parallel execution feature lets you get the test results in minutes.
• Easy setup: Being a cloud-based tool, the initial setup is extremely straightforward and only takes a few minutes.
• Supports third-party integrations: testRigor can be easily integrated with most CI/CD tools, test management tools, and issue-tracking tools.
• Reporting capabilities: Offers good reporting capabilities and captures screenshots at every step.

Limitations of testRigor

This AI-based, no-code tool has it all. As a tester, you will find your productivity increased manifold when using testRigor. However, a few points you can consider are as follows.

• No-code tool: If you are loyal to a particular programming language, you will have to adjust your methods for testRigor. Being a no-code tool, it supports writing tests in plain English language. However, in this fast-paced software development industry, you’d instead write tests in simple English and let the tool do the heavy lifting rather than waste precious hours coding test scripts instead of improving the application.
• Paid plan: testRigor has paid enterprise plans along with its free version. A good strategy would be to try out the tool using the free account and then opt for a paid version since the paid version has certain features that are not available in the free one. You can speak to testRigor’s sales representatives and find a plan that best suits your needs.