Cypress Testing vs Selenium Testing

Cypress Testing vs Selenium Testing

Automation is a process that replaces repetitive tasks with automated processes, allowing for better quality and increased productivity. Both Cypress Testing and Selenium Testing are popular open-source frameworks for browser automation in both unit testing and integration testing. The scope of testing cannot be generalized, as it differs with every application. And the very first step to Test Automation is deciding the framework – Cypress vs Selenium. 

Both are test automation frameworks in one sense, but both approach the concept of automated testing differently. Cypress is a test automation tool built by an experienced team of web developers, whereas Selenium is just a powerful browser automation software. 

The biggest difference between them is that Cypress simulates user interactions to create tests, whereas Selenium automates the browsers behavior without actually knowing anything about the actual code being tested. Furthermore, both the testing frameworks have been running well and, in this blog, we will be discussing both the frameworks in depth.

Why should one always choose between Cypress and Selenium?

Both Cypress and Selenium function as web test automation tools, which can be used to quickly add web tests to an existing or new web-based application. Both tools have a number of features in common, but they also have unique selling points. A comprehensive comparison of the two shows that while Selenium is established as a test automation tool with advanced features, Cypress has more capabilities than Selenium in certain areas. 

Here, Selenium is a popular open-source web automation framework written in Java. It uses a recorder to drive the browser and generates Selenese code as output for various functional tests. On the other hand, Cypress Testing is a relatively new player in the market, but it does not lack important features that its competition offers. Cypress is developed using JavaScript and Test262+Assert, which makes it easier and faster to write tests. It was released with the objective of making automated web testing easier and faster without compromising on accuracy.

Selenium Testing

Selenium is an automated testing software testing framework for web applications. It uses the WebDriver to communicate with the browser, in order to carry out tests on the web pages from a different machine than the one that is running the browser. Like a safety net, Selenium has security measures in place to make sure errors are not created. With Selenium, there is no need for duplicate testing of the same elements as each step can be recorded as a scenario and played back every time to ensure quality. It is a suite of tools that helps in automating web browsers. Selenium currently supports automation of browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Safari, and Opera. This unique combination of features allows Selenium to solve many of the common problems associated with running automated front-end tests.

Features of Selenium Testing

Selenium can be employed in different ways – in a native environment, or within the cloud, as an open-source project. In an environment like this, you would not need to download the browser and software that is to be tested, because Selenium will do it for you. The data will be driven by your commands through the browser driver interface running on your machine. However, the features and the advantages of Selenium Testing that make it useful for the testers are

  • Can be tested with multiple Languages and Browsers

The Selenium Server lets you run tests in any browser on any operating system, so you get cross-platform speed without the need to write and maintain separate test versions. You can use it to test your web applications on multiple browsers and make sure that they are working as expected. Selenium automates browsers like Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer (IE), Safari, Opera, N-Hance, etc. Selenium IDE allows developers to write recordable scripts in all major programming languages including Java, C.

  • Easy and Quick Testing

Selenium provides APIs that are platform independent, which means they can be run on various platforms with no changes in the source code like Windows, Linux, Mac etc. Selenium tests have good repeatability because the testing framework is not dependent on browsers. Also, the tests run faster because of fewer dependencies on other systems. Various community-developed tools can be called from within the application code to help with data population, session management, and picture taking.

  • Reusable Codes and Portable

Selenium testing is a suite of tools that can be used for cross browser testing. These tools include WebDrivers, Page Object Model (POM), and testing frameworks like JUnit and TestNG. The WebDriver imports the data from the test script into a database, which is then picked up by the monitoring tool. This monitoring tool creates periodic snapshots while the test is running, and they are used by the programmers to detect possible errors.

  • Less Resources required and better tools

Testing through Selenium is much easier when compared to other frameworks used for testing purposes. It is a very popular tool as it is extremely cost effective and there are numerous benefits of using Selenium. There are also various types of development environments that can be used in order to test through an application. It helps the user to change the code easily in order to fix any bugs that may arise during the application’s execution.

 

Read here :   Appium vs Selenium

 

Drawbacks of Selenium Testing

Selenium is a great tool for testing web applications. Unlike many other comparable tools, Selenium has been designed to simulate the way in which humans surf the web. However, being a testing tool, there are some drawbacks also which makes it hard for the testers to get their work done. Some of these are:

  • Requires highly qualified testers

Selenium Testing has been quite famous among the testers because it supports multiple languages and can be run on multiple browsers. However, the testers need to be highly professional and qualified to come up with the solutions that will be coming up once the testing is done. 

  • Inconsistent Solutions

If a tester is looking to get complete solutions from Selenium Testing, then they need to involve the third-party frameworks that are available with the testers. Moreover, it makes it hard for the testers as they have to run the codes on other tools too.

Selenium is a great testing automation tool that performs very well. The best thing about it is that you can record the tests to re-use them later in any platform or environment. However, these disadvantages make the task hard for the testers.

Cypress Testing

Cypress is an excellent choice when it comes to writing tests for modern web applications that are complex but not native applications. Cypress testing is available across the board and does not rely on browser plugins and extensions to perform testing at the code level, hence it is a robust testing solution. Of course, it is not totally free from limitations, but if you are looking for a tool that can help you with your project development – Cypress is given priority. The open-source, cross-platform and command-line tool can be used for functional testing of websites and web applications. 

With cloud-based testing platforms like LambdaTest, you can run Cypress end-to-end tests on a blazing-fast Cypress test execution platform. It is a reliable, scalable, and secure test execution platform built for scale. You can run Cypress tests on 40+ different browsers and browser versions, including the Electron browser and headless versions.

Features of Cypress Testing

Cypress is highly extensible, so you can easily write custom commands (see below for example). You can even integrate it with your continuous integration – as Cypress exposes a WebSocket server which will notify you when tests are starting and have finished. This allows you to integrate Cypress into your workflow seamlessly. However, with the features it has, the testers can easily perform automated testing.

  • Screenshots of tests with good results

Cypress helps you test your websites and apps faster. It automatically saves a history of your tests on every failure, so you can reproduce bugs and fix them faster. Cypress records videos of your entire test suite, so you can debug on your machine or in the Dashboard. Cypress is built by developers, for developers. 

  • Detection of unreliable tests with traffic control

The Flaky test management gives you more control, visibility and understanding on your tests. Run only the tests that have been annotated with “flaky” and instantly get insight into what caused each error. Furthermore, it can access the tests that are causing problems without taking the server.

  • Easy Debugging 

Cypress makes it easy to debug your tests directly from the Chrome Developer Tools. Not only is the Cypress test runner a better instrumented environment for testing, it has taken all the work out of providing meaningful and actionable errors and stack traces. Cypress’s readable errors are a major reason why you should use Cypress for your next testing project.

Drawbacks of Cypress Testing

Cypress is a fast, headless browser that runs end-to-end tests against your application. It provides a clean DSL in JavaScript and integrates with the tools you already use such as GitHub, CI services and Slack. Developers are given state of the art testing capabilities right out of the box. However, it has some disadvantages too which can’t be ignored. These are 

  • Not useful for multiple tabs or browser

When we’re doing manual testing, there are lots of websites that have this kind of layout, where you click on a link, then click on another link, and then you scroll down to the bottom of the page. Cypress does not currently allow tests to be written using multiple browser windows or tabs.

  • Can’t run with multiple languages

Cypress lets you use the same language, tools and workflow that you would use to build your application, but it only runs your tests in real browsers. However, Cypress only supports Javascript and hence multiple languages can’t be used in it. 

Cypress is an interesting testing tool because it’s different from most other test runner/mocha alternatives in that they only support testing in a browser environment. But these drawbacks are surely going to make the task difficult for the testers.

Key Differences between Selenium Testing and Cypress Testing

Considering Selenium Testing and Cypress Testing, we have learned about what the two tools are used for and how they can be used by the testers to understand their advantages and drawbacks. However, now, we will be looking at the key differences between the two testing tools.

Features of the Tool Selenium Testing  Cypress Testing
Frameworks Present Frameworks like Cucumber for JavaScript and JUnit for Java are present. Only Mocha JS is present in Cypress Testing
Languages Present Many languages like Ruby, Java, C#, python and many more are present Cypress testing can be only done through JavaScript
Setting up the Program It is hard to set up Selenium Testing and is a time taking process with additional downloads. Setting up for Cypress Testing is simple and can be done easily.
Browsers Present Multiple Browsers are present in Selenium Testing like Chrome, Safari, Edge, Opera etc. Few Browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Edge are present in it.
Documentation and other guidelines The documentation available is of top quality and the users are well supported with the community present in it. The community present here is growing at a positive rate. However, the documentation here is simple and straightforward.

Final Thoughts

Most developers buy test automation tools because they are not familiar or comfortable with the technical nuances involved with writing automation scripts. Choosing the right test automation tool ensures that you select a tool which allows you to do web testing in an easier manner rather than one which adds to your already long list of concerns. 

As can be seen from this article, there are certain aspects that one needs to take into consideration while choosing the tool. The most important thing is to make an informed decision after thoroughly reviewing different test automation tools and deciding which ones suit your organization’s requirements. Considering both Selenium and Cypress, it is essential to know that both have advantages and disadvantages and hence it depends on the testers which tool they want to choose.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *