Opkey vs. Selenium

This is the age of ERP transformation, and test automation is no longer a question of “Why?” or “If.” It is a question of “How?”

• How can we efficiently create test scripts? 

• How easily we can maintain tests with constantly changing applications? 

• How can we easily scale test automation to increase test coverage?

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In this context, Selenium WebDriver is one of the most recognized test automation tools in the industry. Developed by Jason Huggins in 2004, the tool took off after merging with WebDriver in 2009. It is estimated that developers and test engineers across 50,000+ organizations use Selenium WebDriver to automate their regression testing, as well as other types of tests.

Despite its wide adoption, Selenium has one major drawback: It is  primarily a tool for developers or SDETs (Software Developer Engineer in Test). In other words, users must be technically trained to get the most out of Selenium. And as many enterprises now realize, testing should be an enterprise-wide activity involving non-technical business users (non-coders).

Introducing Opkey, the industry’s leading test automation platform, easy enough for any employee to use.

Opkey provides no-code automated testing fo­r business enterprises, both large and small. While Selenium needs an IT-literate coder, Opkey’s automation saves enterprises time and money in testing because of its drag-and-drop interface, allowing business users to test their daily business processes seamlessly. Aside from eliminating technical resources, Opkey has pre-built accelerators for 15 of the most popular enterprise applications, and Selenium can do the same, but with lots of programming support.

We are often asked how Opkey compares to Selenium, or if Selenium users need Opkey. We are not degrading WebDriver. In fact, our team is inspired by Selenium WebDriver and what it has done for the testing community. The following information compares Selenium WebDriver and Opkey so you can make the best choice for your enterprise. Let’s get started.

About Selenium

Selenium is an open-source test automation tool that allows APIs to automate the tests carried out in web browsers. Any action can be performed, such as click, set text, etc., by writing a piece of code. It also provides different options to write code. For example, a user can write a code in Java, Python, C#, Ruby, JavaScript, etc.

Reasons for using Selenium

These are the main reasons behind Selenium’s popularity:

• Selenium is an open-source tool; there is no licensing cost involved.

• It allows test cases to be written in different programming languages like Java, Python, C#, PHP, Ruby, Perl & .Net.

• Tests can be carried out in Windows, Mac, or Linux.

• Support for all major browsers including Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, or Opera.

• Support for all major browsers including Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, or Opera.

• Features can integrate with tools such as TestNG & JUnit for managing test cases and generating reports.

• Integrations with Maven, Jenkins & Docker can achieve continuous testing.

• It allows users to run parallel executions with cloud providers like SauceLabs and BrowserStack.

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Because its an open source (free), Selenium is often the first choice when any organization attempts to automate its testing. This leads enterprises to hire engineers who are good at programming and have years of experience writing reusable and maintainable code.

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Another benefit of Opkey over Selenium: Opkey has a recorder and playback engine that records each step from your screen. 

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One more issue with Selenium is that the code becomes unmaintainable as it grows. When a new member joins the team, they must learn about the scripts from the coders who wrote them—a long and difficult process. Scripts cannot easily be duplicated or shared, meaning enterprises become overly reliant on the people who wrote them.

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While businesses are initially drawn to Selenium because its an open-source and free tool, no-code platforms like Opkey provide far more cost & time savings in the long run —they’re also easier to use. 

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Video Demonstration: Selenium vs. Opkey

Pros and Cons of using Selenium and Opkey

Opkey’s out-of-the-box key features:

1. Pre-built accelerators– Opkey comes with pre-built accelerators for 15 enterprise applications, including Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, and more. These accelerators allow users to quickly build test cases in seconds—there’s no need to code or build from scratch.
2. Impact analysis and self-healing– If you have worked with applications like Oracle, Salesforce, or MS Dynamics, you know how difficult it is to maintain test cases after an update. Opkey solves this issue by instantly detecting and identifying the changes between old and new versions of these applications and highlights the impacted test cases. You can then self-heal (auto-heal) the scripts with a button click.
3. Self-configuring tests– Opkey’s technology can read the backend configurations of applications like Oracle and Salesforce to create required sets of positive and negative data for tests. This saves the time that Selenium users typically spend creating and maintaining data for test cases.
4. Image-based and text-based object identification– Opkey provides built-in keywords, which can find objects simply by providing a snapshot or text. Although this can be performed through Selenium with third-party integrations, it requires an immense amount of programming skills.
5. Test discovery- Opkey's patent-pending test mining technology discovers the precise business processes and then focuses testing on the most important ones. This prevents enterprises from spending numerous hours on business-process discovery sessions and guarantees that your organization's continuous testing program has the best test coverage. Selenium provides no such feature for users.

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While businesses are initially drawn to Selenium because it’s an open-source and free tool, no-code platforms like Opkey provide far more cost & time savings in the long run —they’re also easier to use.

In today’s world, IT leaders simply don’t have time to delay. Make a choice that benefits the morale of your team, the sanctity of your budget, the sanity of your employees, and the speed of your timeline.

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