Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Learn Selenium

If your reading this blog, the chances are that you either want to kick-start your career in the IT field or you want to grow from being a manual tester to becoming an automation tester. Either way, you are at the right place because YOU need to learn Selenium. I’m saying this because automation testing has taken the world by storm and the industry is looking for certified professionals. Learn more with the Software testing course online.

You might also want to know, how to start a career in testing, and if Selenium is the right track to get started. If such questions persist, then don’t worry because in this blog, I will give you 10 convincing reasons why you should learn Selenium.

Top 10 reasons to learn Selenium are: 

1. Open source/ Free tool
2. No OS/ browser demands
3. Support for multiple programming languages
4. Availability of Frameworks
5. Strong presence in the DevOps lifecycle
6. Easy integration with other tools
7. Parallel & distributed testing
8. No dependency on GUI based systems
9. Flexibility while designing test cases
10. Demand for Selenium testers

Let me explain each of those reasons in a more detailed fashion.

1. Open Special Source/ Free Tool

Selenium is an open source tool, which means anybody can use it for free. Any organization can use Selenium to test their website or web application and even independent programmers can learn and practice automation testing using Selenium WebDriver.

The problem with other testing tools are that, they are either licensed tools, or their functionality is not as good as Selenium. HP’s QTP, IBM’s RFT, TestComplete, Ranorex are all proprietary (licensed) tools. Feature-wise, Selenium is the clear winner when compared to the others, no second thoughts!

2. No Special OS/ Browser/ Hardware Demands

This is another benefit that you get with Selenium. You don’t need a system with 16gb RAM or high HDD. Neither do you need to house a WindowsOS or MacOS or LinuxOS. The OS you use for home purpose is good enough for Selenium testing.

Most importantly, you can test the website on any browser, be it Chrome or Firefox or Safari or Internet Explorer or even Opera for that matter of fact. The simplicity needed to work with Selenium can be related to how easy it is to plugin USB drives to your system for transferring data.

3. Multiple Programming Language Support

This has to be the single most important factor for any programmer to get into the Automation Testing domain. Most tools in the market need you to be specialized in one particular programming language. Languages such as VBScript, Java, C# are among the common scripting languages required by various tools.

But with Selenium, you will not face too many restrictions. Even if you are skilled in one of these languages, you can start your career: Java or Python or Perl or PHP or Ruby or C# or .Net.

4. Availability of Frameworks

Frameworks are very similar to templates. You can make slight modification to the code as per your requirement for different conditions, instead of making wholesale changes. There are various frameworks like:

• Data driven testing
• Keyword driven testing
• Hybrid testing
• Module driven testing & many more..

5. Strong presence in the DevOps lifecycle

Selenium forms an integral part of the DevOps lifecycle because most companies are now replacing Agile or Waterfall approaches with the DevOps approach. Very few testing tools qualify as a DevOps tool because DevOps emphasizes on using open source tools.

Also because most of the software products developed nowadays are delivered on the cloud, web based testing tools are the one’s that are extensively used; this is where Selenium fits perfectly. 

6. Easy Integration With Other Tools

Selenium can be easily integrated with other open source tools. Since most of the tools used in DevOps or otherwise are very useful and open source, those tools have a lot of takers. And when these tools are integrated with Selenium, we can achieve automation (Continuous testing in DevOps).

Some of those tool are Jenkins, TestNG, Maven, JUnit, Sikuli & AutoIT. 

7. Parallel & Distributed Testing

Multiple Selenium tests cases can be executed in parallel on the same machine or on remote machines. Selenium Grid is used for executing the test cases on remote machines. By performing parallel & distributed testing, you save time to run tests, execute the tests in the same machine, or you can execute the tests on web servers.
In addition, if you are not interested to set Selenium Grid in your systems, you can use online Selenium Grids such as LambdaTest which facilitates access to more than 2000 browser environments over which you can run your tests and truly automate cross-browser testing 

This should be an important factor in influencing you to learn Selenium because with other tools, you will miss the luxury of parallel & distributed testing due to system overhead (performance) or lack of functionality. In the industry, it is necessary to execute the tests quickly & efficiently.

8. No Dependency On GUI Based Systems

Since Selenium tests can be executed without a GUI, the tests can be carried out on web servers and automation can be achieved by scheduling it’s execution by
integrating it with other tools. No GUI, also means the performance of your machines will drastically improve. 

9. Flexibility While Designing Test Cases

For designing test cases in Selenium, you have the flexibility to design it either via programming logic or by record and playback approach. If you do not have the technical knowledge to script WebDriver code, you can use IDE to record your tests and export the programming logic to an equivalent programming language of your choice.

Selenium WebDriver can be used to write your logic using programming languages (which happens most of the time) or you can use Selenium IDE to record your tests and export it later into a programming language of your choice to execute as a WebDriver test. 

10. Increasing Demand For Selenium Testers

Last but not the least, Selenium testers have a lot of takers in the market. Since Selenium’s usage is growing consistently, even the demand for Selenium testers is growing proportionately. Take a look at the below graphs to understand what is their demand and how much Selenium testers get paid on an average.

Source: https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk

So, that brings an end to this blog on the Top 10 Reasons To Learn Selenium. I hope these reasons make sense to  you and convey the importance to learn Selenium (demand & supply). You might also be interested in watching the below video which talks about the 10 Reasons To Learn Selenium.

If you wish to learn Selenium and build a career in the testing domain, then check out our interactive, live-online Selenium Certification Training, which comes with 24*7 support to guide you throughout your learning period.

For details, You can even check out test automation strategies and methodology concepts with the Automation testing online course.

Got a question for us? Please mention it in the comments section and we will get back to you.