The expansion in research and technological tools implementation has drawn more attention to machinery and its development. More than before, humans now focus on testing and evaluating the outcome of things using the automated way. In the computer and software world, Software automation testing is growing by the day and new methods are coming up. Amongst these are HP, Appium, Selenium, RFT, TestComplete, etc. Also, new training and courses are developed around these testing tools to get more people on board with the know-how and operating process for these methods. An example is Selenium Training and other Selenium Courses available. In this article, more focus will be on two major testing methods; Selenium and TestComplete including their pros and cons. With proper attention, you will enjoy this interesting and detailed piece to the end. Let’s get started.Â
What is Selenium?
Selenium is an automation testing tool available for free for several programming languages such as C#, Java, Phyton, etc. Selenium automation testing is done when there is a need to cross-check the outcome of website applications on multiple browsing sources. The selenium testing software, although compacted in a single pack, exists in different segments and is useful for testing in specific areas of the work. the software was developed in 2004 by Jason Huggins as a means to reduce the manual testing on an application under development. In the introduction, you have seen a brief definition of automation testing tools, and even as a newbie to the tech world, the other circumstances in the world have shown the difficulty in working with manual programs. The creation of this testing tool was completed using a Java Programming Language, thereafter named JavaScriptTestRunner. The success of this development led to the renaming of the application to Selenium. Although Jason Huggins created the first method, the different segmentations available today were developed by other engineers and programmers.
There are a lot of Selenium Trainings done today and you can select one of the Selenium Courses to get started.
As mentioned earlier, Selenium has four suites of tools. They are Selenium WebDriver, Selenium IDE, Selenium Remote Control (RC), Selenium Grid. selenium Automation Software accepts different types of testing and this will be briefly explained below. Interestingly, understanding Selenium WebDriver comes in a simpler way by taking training to get the Selenium WebDriver Java Certification
Performance Testing: this is done by the QA professionals and they are carried out before the total implementation of a project to ensure the performance standards given by the stakeholders are met before launching. For the tester carrying this operation out, they validate if the homepage loads within a short duration on a variety of browsers.
Compatibility Testing: this is also done by the testers to check the compatibility of the website applications with browsers and Operating System applications. Selenium software is very effective when carrying out this operation.
Regression Testing: this is done on a newly developed application to ensure it functions well with the previous ones. You’d agree that this process is quite essential as a hitch in this process can cause total malfunctioning of the system.
Other testing methods are also compatible with Selenium software. With this, you see the compatibility of the software with diverse methods and why you should choose it for your testing. Before we move to the comparison, let’s quickly examine what the TestComplete automation tool is and how it operates.
What is TestComplete?
TestComplete is a software automated tool created by SmartBear Software. This testing tool has risen to a competition stage with Selenium due to some of its features. One of these is the compatibility of the software with mobile, desktop, and web applications. This cuts some of the pros of Selenium, however, we’ll get to see this later. TestComplete, similar to Selenium, has four major components which are TestComplete Web Module, TestComplete Platform, TestComplete Desktop Module, and TestComplete Mobile Module.
TestComplete Platform is a testing tool that covers the desktop, web, and mobile tools during testing on platforms, browsers, and applications. The TestComplete platform is necessary before any testing can be done on these sites. The TestComplete Desktop Module is developed for testing on desktop applications. These can be developed using diverse languages and done on the Desktop Module due to its numerous functioning tools. TestComplete Web Module and TestComplete Mobile Module are created to test Web and Mobile applications respectively.
Which should you choose: TestComplete or Selenium?
Selenium is a software testing tool that is developed to support three major operating systems; Mac, Windows, and Linux. This is one of the major advantages of the software testing tool over TestComplete. The latter on the other hand can only support Unix and Linux systems which makes it quite outdated and unable to support new inventions such as Mac. So, if you’re working on an application for other operating systems aside from Linux, Selenium is your best choice.
Another advantage of Selenium over TestComplete is its cost. Over time, many have complained about the high cost of TestComplete, although the tool has proven to be effective in its area of specialization. In comparison to Selenium, you’ll recall that there was no cost attached to the explanation of the software above. This implies that it is free and open to all who wish to use it. Why not save some cost by using the free software system.
Here, TestComplete tries to overpower Selenium as it supports mobile, desktop, and web applications. However, the latter can only work on web-based applications. Nonetheless, the Webdriver tool known as Appium has been developed to enable the software to work with mobile applications. This was developed by the professionals holding a Selenium Webdriver Java Certification
Selenium supports more programming languages and browsers than TestComplete. For those using the latter, they may be restricted to some seven programming languages namely JavaScript, VBScript, C+, C#, DelphiScript, and Python. However, Selenium has more compatibility with programming languages. More so, Selenium has more support for operating systems including Microsoft, Linux, and Apple OS X while TestComplete is only compatible with Microsoft Windows. The list goes on and it is clear that Selenium is more preferred over TestComplete. Although it has some cons as well, it is more effective considering some of the compatible features. With this preference, the use and need to expand knowledge on the software is common now. you could pick it up as an interest to enroll in a Selenium Course or Selenium Training by the tech companies and professionals. Given its relevance now, holding a Selenium WebDriver Java Certification will be a plus in the future. There are other testing software tools, but with the knowledge gained from this article, you can jump on Selenium usage without any problems.
