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Selenium

The grandfather of browser automation still relevant for cross-browser testing. Surpassed for scraping by Playwright and Puppeteer but massive community. Free and open-source with infinite online resources.

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Who's it for?Ops

Review by a Growth Engineer

My verdict: the veteran of browser automation.

Selenium remains relevant for cross-browser testing, but Playwright has surpassed it for new projects. The historic browser automation tool, still useful for testing. Selenium is the grandfather of automatic scraping/testing. It's cross-browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari), but slower than Puppeteer or Playwright. Free and open-source. If you do automatic cross-browser testing, Selenium remains relevant. For pure scraping, Puppeteer or Playwright are better. But the community is massive and resources are infinite.

What I like less: the verbose syntax, inferior performance compared to Playwright/Puppeteer, and the fact that for new projects, there's better now.

My advice: for new projects, go with Playwright. It's more modern, faster, and the API is more elegant. Selenium remains relevant if you have legacy to maintain or specific cross-browser compatibility needs.

Why add it to your stack?

Still useful for cross-browser testing, but Playwright is my first choice for new projects.

What you can do with it

  • 1Test your app on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge automatically
  • 2Maintain existing test suites based on Selenium
  • 3Integrate automated tests into your CI/CD deployment pipelines
  • 4Scrape simple sites when you already have Selenium in place

What it does

  • Cross-browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari)
  • Multi-language (Python, Java, JS...)
  • Massive community
  • Infinite resources
  • Open-source

How much?

Starting at 0

Free and open-source.

The detailed verdict

Do I really need this?

For new projects, Playwright is generally better. Selenium remains relevant for legacy.

Does it play nice with my stack?

Integrates with all major languages and all testing frameworks.

Is it easy to pick up?

The learning curve is real. It's verbose and errors are sometimes cryptic.

Is the UX any good?

The syntax is verbose and dated. Playwright and Puppeteer are more elegant.

Is it worth it?

Free and open-source. No cost except your time.

What I like

  • Automated cross-browser testing on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge
  • Legacy projects with an existing Selenium codebase
  • Massive community and infinite resources for learning

What I like less

  • Fast scraping since Puppeteer and Playwright are significantly more performant
  • Modern projects where Playwright is better suited with a more elegant API
  • Verbose syntax and sometimes cryptic errors difficult to debug

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