Top Reasons for Using Selenium in Software Testing

In the current IT industry, whenever a new software is developed, it is being tested by the various software testing procedure. These tests ensure that the software is as bug free as possible for the satisfaction of the customers who will be using it. Software testing may be of manual or automated type. The automated testing procedures are more popular due to the fact that it costs less and is a speedy process.

Automated testing tools are very popular among various organizations as they are low cost and provide testing results which are reliable and highly accurate. Of the multiple automated testing tools present, Selenium is by far the most popular one. It is applicable for both applicable for the functionality as well as the GUI and is becoming a favourite for the automated testers of web applications.

So, you ask why? Well following are the top reasons for using Selenium in software testing:

1. When compared with the various other automated testing tools, Selenium is far more popular as it has the capability of working on almost all the available operating systems.
2. Selenium is very cost effective when compared to other automated testing tools due to the fact that it is an open source system.
3. Multiple languages such as Python, Pearl, and Ruby, PHP, .NET (C #) and Java are well supported by Selenium. However, knowing any one of these languages well, will allow you to work on Selenium with perfect ease.
4. When you are working with Selenium, you can write your automation test script in any language you wish. The language used for building Selenium is not dependant on the language used for script writing which proves to be a huge advantage. 
5. Be it Opera, Safari, Chrome, IE 6, 7, 8 or Mozilla Firefox, Selenium will work with equal ease on all of the leading browsers and hence is easy to work with.
6. Selenium is backed up by Google and has a very good development team to support it.
7. CSS, Xpath, DOM, and so on are some of the most robust methods of locating various elements when automatic testing is on process.
8. When it comes to implementation of frameworks that revolve around Object oriented programming like Keyword Driven, Data driven and Hybrid, Selenium is unparalleled in the market.
9. TestNG, JUnit, NUnit and so on are the open source frameworks which are well integrated with Selenium.
10. When you work with Selenium, it allows you to work on multiple machines at the same time. Thus it helps in saving your time as you can perform various tests on a number of browsers in different machines and hat too in the same time. This is a huge advantage when you have the task of testing a large project within a limited period of time.

When it comes to the testing of web applications like browser compatibility along with the functionality tests, Selenium is by far the best of the lot. With the various modes and test packages that the automation tool has to offer, you no longer need to search other tools for testing your web application for their superior functionality and can easily deliver quality product to the customers and gain their trust.