Today, we have a vast list of automation testing tools available in the market. These testing frameworks simplify the most complex software testing works. Moreover, these testing platforms are written for particular coding languages for software testing. Also, these frameworks offer built-in and reusable functions that help in executing tests easily. In this article, Cypress Vs Selenium, we are going to present the major differences between these testing frameworks.
Cypress and Selenium, both are the most useful test automation frameworks. With the automation scripts, these frameworks test any software very quickly. Besides, in Cypress Vs Selenium, the most promising tools for testing, it’s difficult to choose the preferred web automation tool.
Cypress is a test runner with a larger tool feature and a JavaScript-based framework that runs in the web app parallel to the browser. Selenium has different tools like Webdriver, Grid, IDE, etc. that collectively help in web app testing with automation. Both frameworks are useful for the same purpose but with different features and advantages.
In brief, under Cypress vs. Selenium, Cypress is a next-gen testing tool for web apps. Another testing tool is an open-source web testing framework with automation features for web browsers. Moreover, they include several components with the latest features that make the product more reliable and robust in use.
Let us discuss in detail these testing frameworks and check the most preferable one by today’s market.
.png)
Cypress vs Selenium 2020
All we know is that Selenium is the most prominent automation testing framework since 2004 for functional and web testing. As it offers support for multiple coding languages and cross-platform support also, most testers prefer it. Unlike Selenium, Cypress only supports JavaScript, and also it’s an open-source web app testing framework.
Now the real fight begins among Cypress vs Selenium, automation frameworks for testing.
Get more knowledge with practical insights on the Selenium framework by stepping into Selenium Online Course with OnlineITGuru.
Why use Cypress (Cypress vs Selenium)
Cypress is an end-to-end testing framework with an automation principle that uses JavaScript for writing test scripts. This helps in executing tests. It was released in the year 2014, newly into the market. Moreover, it also includes a different commercial feature and tools like CI dashboard.
With many JavaScript frameworks, Cypress integrates the JavaScript libraries to build its own automated test framework. Therefore, it doesn’t support other programming languages except for JavaScript. Besides, Cypress also supports some of the browsers like Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Firefox, Electron, etc.
Thus, many testers find Cypress easier to use due to its simplicity. Cypress test case is very short and easier to read and understand than the Selenium tool. In addition to this, another tool also provides a regular update of the test scripts while writing for execution. Hence, it’s much easier for users to write test scripts much easier and faster to write.
Now, we will look into the process of how Cypress actually works in real-time. Cypress performs in the running loop similar to the application. It’s a Node.js server process. Both of these communicate, synchronize, and execute tasks constantly for each other. Moreover, Cypress works at the network layer by reading and modifying web traffic alongside the process. Hence, it allows Cypress to modify the things coming from the browser along with changing the code when necessary. This happens whenever they interface with the ability of browser automation.
Further, Cypress also offers support to the Mocha test framework. As it follows agile methodology, many front-end developers started building their own test cases. In this regard, JavaScript is the most popularly used coding language among the developers at from-end. Using the Cypress testing framework, developers can design the following things; Unit tests, combination Tests, and End-to-end tests.
What is the Selenium testing framework? (Cypress vs Selenium)
We know that this is an automated software testing framework that supports a variety of coding languages. Also, it offers cross-platform support. This is a popular test automation tool for web browsers that allows developers to automate tests for various browsers using the Selenium Webdriver library.
Developers and quality analysts have the independence to choose the programming language on their own for development. Furthermore, its developers have built the framework with several language bindings’ support it such as Java, Python, etc.
The web driver component of this tool uses JSON protocol for executing test cases across platforms. Mainly there are three different steps of test execution involves here, such as;
Translation of test commands into URL.
Drivers at browsers get these URLs through an HTTP server.
Later, these URLs forwarded further to the real browsers, and the test script commands are executed as well.
||{"title":"Master in Selenium", "subTitle":"Selenium Certification Training by ITGURU's", "btnTitle":"View Details","url":"https://onlineitguru.com/selenium-training.html","boxType":"demo","videoId":"SsWf3LjoT5Y"}||
Furthermore, this framework, being a leading solution for tests, acts as a platform to standard test frameworks like Protractor, WebDriverIO, etc. It also works for mobile app testing such as Appium. Therefore, many companies and users prefer it globally for download and use.
It also supports several BDD frameworks like Behave, SpecFlow, JUnit, TestNG, PyTest, Mocha, etc.
It can perform tests across different browsers at a time, locally or remotely upon a Server, using the Grid component. But many software vendors offer their own built platforms for testing remotely with available infrastructure. This makes developers concentrate on test scripts.
Thus, we have the basic information of both testing frameworks. But there is more to learn in Cypress vs Selenium context. In the following paragraphs, we will look into the major and key differences among these frameworks.
Cypress vs Selenium: Major Differences
Here, we have the key differences for Cypress vs Selenium testing frameworks. WE can learn why they are much useful and sometimes not.
Installation
In the Cypress framework, there’s no specific configuration. You just need to install the .exe file and the rest of the drivers and dependencies get automatically installed and configured. This framework enables automation to be set up to get started in minutes. The major design principle of the Cypress test framework was to be able to package and bundle all things together. This helps to make the whole end-to-end testing experience smoother and simple for developers.
In case, to use this framework in the automation project you need to install the language binding’s libraries first. Here, you can choose them as per your need. Here, you will also require Selenium Web Driver binaries for the browsers on which you want to automate and run tests.
In this context, Cypress has the upper hand compared to the Selenium framework as it takes less installation and configuration time.
Browser Support
In Cypress vs Selenium, the platform Cypress supports Chromium, Canary, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Electron, etc. browsers.
Selenium testing framework supports almost all the available browsers within the current market. Such as Google Chrome (Almost all versions), Firefox, Internet Explorer (from ver. 6 to latest), Opera, Safari, etc.
Hence, we can say that Selenium provides support for all the browsers or has cross-browser support than Cypress. In Cypress vs Selenium, compared to Cypress, Selenium is better in this context.
Supporting Languages
In Cypress vs Selenium, the second framework supports almost all the coding languages such as Java, C, C#, Python, Objective-C, Ruby, PHP, and JavaScript. There are a few more languages in this context.
But Cypress only supports “JavaScript” and doesn’t support other program languages. It forces the users sometimes to learn a specific language for different purposes.
Hence, having the support of many different languages, the other framework comes in very handy for the users. It also offers the flexibility to select the language they want to use for developing an automation framework.
Cypress doesn’t offer this type of facility.
Automation Tests in Parallel
In terms of parallel execution of tests, Selenium puts the Cypress framework a step behind. It offers many options for parallel testing which is important for automation testing. The community mostly uses Selenium Grid in this regard with TestNG. It is also easier for integration purposes.
Performance
We can see that performance-wise, Selenium is slower than Cypress. It includes many layers for running the code between the test and the browser, unlike Cypress. Cypress framework doesn’t have many layers of architecture like the other one.
Hence, this is the major fact of change in Cypress compared to the Selenium.
Operating System Support
Cypress automation testing supports Windows, Mac, Linus, operating systems. On the other hand, another platform supports Linus, Windows, Android, iOS, etc. O S.
Integration with Automation
In Cypress, integration with automation is possible but with some restrictions. There is only an option available for users that are using the command line and Mocha library.
In another framework, it is possible for integrating CI/CD through the use of any test reports, testing library, and performance patterns. Moreover, we can make adjustments easily.
BDD and TDD support
This framework (Sel) supports BDD (or Behavior Driven Development) along with data-driven testing through external libraries. But Cypress doesn’t offer any such support as of now.
Supporting Locators
In Cypress vs Selenium, the second one offers support for all types of locators for a general web app. Such as XPath, ID, Name, CSS, link text, and partial link. On the other hand, Cypress only supports CSS and Xpath locators useful for object identity.
Cypress advantages and disadvantages (Cypress vs Selenium)
There are many advantages and a few disadvantages also of using Cypress as an automation testing framework. These are as follows;-
Faster implementation, setup, and debug
As Cypress is based on the Node.js platform, it’s far easier to configure, apply, and debug apps much faster. With the help of JavaScript, its coding is simpler and installation is very easy and you do not need to spend much time. Here, you don’t need any additional libraries to install as they install automatically with the setup.
Moreover, the DSL or Domain Specific Language of Cypress helps developers to work easily. The users also can easily understand it and can read also. This DSL language is similar to any other coding language.
The process of debugging any app is also easier as it has native access to each object that simplifies the error analysis. Besides, users can debug their apps directly using Chrome DevTools where tests are performed in the browser. In case of failure, Cypress provides a readable message and suggests changing the application. On a whole, all this makes debugging much faster.
Test Execution
Executing automated tests on this platform is very fast and awesome. Here, users don’t need to apply additional “waits” as it automatically waits for loading DOM. Moreover, it performs almost all the commands within the browser only, so there is no issue of network lag or else. It renders fast running of tests as much as the application is capable of. Further, users don’t need to run the tests every time after saving a file after the test. Here, it automatically triggers tests to run within the browser.
Moreover, Cypress is a “modern tool” among other automation tools that exist in the market. It allows a fast and reliable testing environment for every web browser. This makes the framework much popular in the existing market.
The disadvantages for Cypress (Cypress vs Selenium) are;-
This is not a general-purpose automation tool like others.
The commands of a testing run inside the browser only and don’t have multi-browser support. Tests execution bound to single-origin only.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Selenium (Cypress vs Selenium)
Here we look into the advantages of the selenium framework.
This is an open-source platform having various components like Selenium IDE, RC, Grid, and Web Driver. It has been released under the license Apache.
It supports various coding languages. (Java, Ruby, Python, C#, etc. languages)
Cross-platform support and different OS supports.
Test execution support in parallel mode.
Here, we mentioned a few benefits only as most of the benefits are mentioned in the above content.
||{"title":"Master in Selenium", "subTitle":"Selenium Certification Training by ITGURU's", "btnTitle":"View Details","url":"https://onlineitguru.com/selenium-training.html","boxType":"reg"}||
Disadvantages of Selenium (Cypress vs Selenium)
The major disadvantages of this automation tool in cypress vs selenium are;-
It offers support to web-based apps only. Due to open-source availability, there is no reliable tech support for this tool.
Here, it needs to spend a lot of time developing test cases. Further, it offers very limited support for image testing.
Hence, these are the few pros and cons of both the frameworks in the Cypress vs Selenium.
Final words
We can now conclude the topic Cypress Vs Selenium as I hope you got the basic idea of both automation testing platforms. Both of them have some pros and cons and they compete with each other in the market. They have good potential in executing tests in automation environments in their specific areas.
It depends upon the user’s needs and necessities to use these two different platforms. Cypress vs Selenium tells us the usage of both platforms for automation testing in different ecosystems. To learn more on this subject in a practical way with expert guidance, step into the Selenium Online Training platform.