Testing any software project is an important step in order to find out how the software functions. Learning when the project acts as expected (and when it does not) is the ultimate goal of the testing process. Testing stops design errors from reaching production code. However, testing should not only happen before code is deployed.
As far as web test automation goes, Selenium is certainly the most popular toolset. That popularity is uncontested. A survey on test automation finding that 54% of the respondents were using Selenium might be surprising only in that the number is so low. Many of the alternatives to Selenium, Software-as-a-Service products that record and re-run entirely in the browser, still use the Selenium as the core driving technology.
Today is a great day at Sauce Labs! We just announced that we’ve acquired Backtrace, a provider of best-in-class error monitoring solutions for software developers and engineers. Backtrace enables organizations to mitigate application risk and improve digital quality by empowering development teams to rapidly deploy code with confidence knowing that they can quickly identify and remediate bugs once in production.
A critical decision for organizations that are defining their automated testing strategy is choosing the right automated testing framework that will help their development and QA teams efficiently write and execute automated tests. The market offers a plethora of frameworks to choose from, and the decision isn’t always easy.
Automated testing for web apps has been around for well over a decade. For much of that time, Selenium has reigned supreme as the go-to testing framework for virtually any type of testing need that involves a browser-based app. But as the world of test automation continues to evolve, newer tools have emerged. Chief among them is Cypress, a testing framework that is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to Selenium. Is Selenium or Cypress a better choice for your automated testing needs?
JavaScript consistently ranks as the world’s most popular programming language among developers. It should come as no surprise, then, that a variety of JavaScript test automation frameworks are available to help developers test JavaScript apps. Here’s a look at the top five such frameworks, with tips on the pros and cons of each.
Spending via smartphones is going up. According to Forbes, smartphones accounted for 46.5% of all holiday sales on Thanksgiving Day 2020, and 40% of sales on Black Friday. This means close to half of all purchases were made not only online, but on a smartphone—which makes the mobile shopping experience all the more critical. Customers expect their transactions and experiences to go off without a hitch. And if that doesn’t happen?
In recent years, there’s been a shift towards broader adoption of JavaScript test automation frameworks. Today our customers are using Cypress, TestCafe, Puppeteer, and most recently, Playwright. Plus, they are often using these alongside existing Selenium and mobile test automation frameworks. The options for testing have increased, and depending on your unique testing needs, you may be adopting one or many solutions in your organization.
We’ve covered a lot of ground in the past few blog posts, including how to contribute to the project, and some details of what you can expect as a Selenium user. But there’s more to Selenium than just the APIs you use to write your tests, and one of the big features we’ve not covered yet is the refreshed Selenium Grid: a mechanism that allows you to distribute your tests across a fleet of machines.
Like most other companies (essential workers notwithstanding), we were forced to shift to an all-remote workforce, meaning many Saucers found themselves working from home for the first time. This presented challenges, of course—some of us simultaneously became homeschool teachers, we lost the ability to have quick hallway conversations, and we just plain missed seeing our coworkers—but in the end, we rallied together and embraced the new normal (or should we say the Zoom normal?).
