June 5, 2020

How to Use Selenium With Perfecto

Continuous Testing

Automation

Selenium is the leading web app testing framework. And it is often used with Perfecto, a cloud testing solution. In this blog, you’ll learn how to use Selenium with Perfecto.

What Is the Selenium Testing Framework?

In a nut shell, Selenium is a set of testing tools that are used for automating web app testing. Selenium is open source and was originally released in 2004, but has continued to evolve since then. There have been many Selenium releases since, with Selenium 4 coming soon. Selenium is a great test automation framework with excellent community support.

Selenium has three main sections:

Selenium WebDriver — A driver that helps you access different browsers.
Selenium IDE — An IDE for functional tests.
Selenium Grid — A Grid that enables parallel testing.

Why Selenium Testers Also Use Perfecto

Many testing teams who use Selenium for web app testing also use Perfecto. That’s because open source tools lack many functions needed for complete test automation.

This U.S. retailer uses Perfecto for web app testing. Because Perfecto is an end-to-end cloud testing solution, it helped the retailer to:

Increase test coverage by 95%.
Achieve 90% unattended parallel test automation.
Reduce regression hours from 160 to 12.

[Check out How One Retailer Scaled Cross-Platform Testing With Perfecto]

It should come as no surprise that many teams using Selenium also use Perfecto. That’s because the two tools are closely integrated, which helps accelerate your web app automation testing.

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How Perfecto Helps Selenium Testing Teams

Perfecto offers web app testing that’s over 50% faster than other vendors. It also…

Scales Selenium Grid in the Cloud
A Selenium Grid in the cloud makes testing much more scalable, and maintenance free.

Provides Reliable Infrastructure
In-house architecture is susceptible to downtime, network clogging, and many other issues. Clouds like Perfecto are reliable and always available.

Finds Bugs Faster
Get robust test failure analysis on your Selenium scripts. Quickly find real defects with false negative detection.

Gives Faster Feedback
Selenium testers get faster feedback with Perfecto, thanks to full CI/CD integration.

Enables Faster Fixes
Debug Selenium scripts from your IDE without having to recreate the test.

Extends Test Coverage
Run Selenium tests against any browser or OS version, new or old.

“Perfecto provides a true test environment — thousands of devices, browsers, and OS combinations,” says Kumar Ashok, Senior QA Engineer at Tide.

Tutorial: How to Use Selenium

Here's a quick tutorial on how to use Selenium:

Download Selenium.
Follow best practices in Selenium documentation.

But there's more to Selenium than just getting started with it. There's also the tools you use with it, like Perfecto.

Here’s a tutorial on how to use Selenium with Perfecto.

1. Install Selenium

First, you’ll need to install Selenium. Download Selenium to get started.

2. Access the Perfecto Cloud

If you don’t have Perfecto, start you free two-week trial here.

3. Decide How to Author Test Scripts

You can write Selenium test scripts with many languages, like JavaScript. You could use a codeless testing solution, like TestCraft. Or you can use a BDD test framework, like Quantum. Quantum is Perfecto’s contribution to the open source community.

4. Apply Real User Conditions

Perfecto offers real user simulation testing and network virtualization. Add these to your Selenium tests for more accurate test results for the end user. You can test things like geolocation, geofencing, time zones, and more.

5. Add a Secure VPN Connection

Perfecto Connect is a transport layer security tunnel. You can add this to your Selenium test by adding the tunnel ID, which provides Perfecto’s secure VPN.

6. Execute the Selenium Tests in Perfecto

Run your Selenium scripts against your designated platforms in Perfecto. Spin up as many virtual machine browser/OS combinations as you need. These will execute quickly in parallel.

7. Review Selenium Test Results

After your tests are done, you can view individual test reports, with rich artifacts like HAR files, screenshots, and crash logs. You can also see the performance of all tests in the CI pipeline in a single dashboard.