Top 6 UI Automation testing tools - Pros and Cons

Almost all companies have started automation testing, those who have not started are looking for good tools to start with. Also, new test engineers who are learning UI automation are confused about which tool to start with. Also, there are many new tools coming which confuses us even more. Currently, we have UI automation tools like selenium,  protractor, playwright, puppeteer, webdriverIO, and Cypress. 

I have created a detailed Youtube video on the pros and cons of automation tools check it out. Also please subscribe for more informative videos.

I recently created a survey on Reddit, which tool is used most, and as expected selenium is still most used by most of the companies but after that from new tools cypress and playwright are more popular. 

Let's Go through the Pros and Cons of Automation tools.

Selenium - 

Pros - 

• Open source 
• Language Independent 
• Third-party Integration 
• Parallel testing 
• Cross-browser support
• Platform Independent 
• Community support

Cons - 

• Setup – requires third-party tools 
• Required well-skilled resources 
• Slow test development 
• Isolated process 
• Automation challenges 
• Longer playtime

Puppeteer - 

Pros - 

• Simple to setup 
• Good documentation 
• Good support from chromium 
• Good Javascript support 
• Inbuilt functions like taking screenshots, downloading pages as pdf 
• Headless mode support

Cons - 

• Limited browser support 
• Limited programming language support

Playwright

Pros -

• Simple to setup 
• Supports Cross-browser 
• Supports multiple programming languages 
• Inbuilt functions 
• Auto waiting, Image comparison 
• Inbuild HTML report 
• Headless mode support

Cons -

• Limited documentation 
• No IE11 support

Protractor 

Pros - 

• Runs on Selenium webdriver, so all the functionality of selenium is supported 
• Easy to manage 
• page objects 
• Image comparision 
• Default waits 
• Supports extra locators like model, binding etc

Cons -

• Supports only Chrome browser 
• Supports only JavaScript 
• The setup is bit complex 
• Robot class is not supported Support issue 
• The protractor is deprecated and will reach end-of-life in the summer of 2023.

Cypress -

Pros - 

• Supports Multiple browsers 
• IDE support 
• Automatic reload tests when changes are made in the application 
• Decent documentation 

Cons - 

• Multiple tab/windows not supported 
• No support for safari browser 
• Plugin dependency 
• Javascript only.

WebDriverIO -

Pros -

• Simple to setup 
• Supports Cross-browser 
• Supports Native mobile applications 
• Supports multiple reports 
• Supports parallel testing

Cons -

• Selenium limitations 
• Complex syntax 
• Not having proper documentation 
• Supports only javascript, Type script support is not straightforward

Conclusion

I have discussed the conclusion in detail in the youtube video. Selenium is still a worldwide used tool but most companies are shifting toward modern tools. If your product is with react.js and developers would be part of automation then javascript-based tools are good. It won't require much additional testing knowledge whereas selenium, and webdriver.io requires special tool-related knowledge.  I found puppeteer a good tool if you don't have the browser and programming language dependency also for learners playwright is good, it supports almost everything and is trending.

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