Updated March 6, 2023
Difference Between Appium vs Selenium
Appium is used for automated testing applications on a mobile device, including mobile application versions, mobile browser application versions, and Hybrid. On the other hand, Selenium is used for test automation of web applications and does not support system & mobile applications. Both Appium and Selenium are open source and available for free of cost. Selenium supports multiple browser settings and operating systems. Similarly, Appium supports all the leading mobile system software like iOS, Android and Microsoft Windows.
Head to Head Comparison between Appium and Selenium (Infographics)
Below are the differences between Appium and Selenium:
Key Difference between Appium and Selenium
Both Appium vs Selenium are popular choices in the market; let us discuss some of the major Difference Between Appium and Selenium :
As Appium is mainly designed to automate testing on any kind of mobile app, it mainly developed as an HTTP server based on Node JS. So the person who is willing to use Appium for their Mobile app automation testing has to install Node JS in their system for setting up the same. So the installation of Node JS is one of the prerequisite criteria for the installation of Appium by any user. Whereas Selenium is mainly designed for generating automation testing for any kind of website or web applications at any time in any browser. Web application mainly runs in one of the specific web browsers, so Selenium is automatically utilized the same. It mainly targets one specific intention of interaction with web application every feature by automatically controlling web browser varieties action. It actually called those define browser actions in a specific approach to run easily in the browser without any manual intervention. It automatically tracks any impact on the existing feature of the entire application easily by performing this kind of automated testing and providing an expected result without any kind of manual effort.
There are two kinds of options available in case of setting up the automated testing environment by using Selenium or Appium, one is Web Driver, and another one is IDE. Appium does not support IDE type feature; it always following Web Driver for designing and setting up any kind of automatic testing in a mobile app, Android or IOS. It follows one specific protocol name JSON wire, which is one of Web Driver’s popular protocol; this protocol mainly drives sessions for android and IOS and completing entire automation testing smartly. Selenium can able to follow two approaches, web driver and IDE both. Web driver is very simple to handle as it has some default features for communicating with web browser anytime and easily able to control their action as per application functionality running automatically without any manual efforts. Web drivers also provide a good utility for distributing a lot of test cases separately across various environment available for Selenium auto testing. And IDE is preferable for the tester who has the basic idea of coding like the developer. Normally one developer and tester both need to be work for setting up this kind of Selenium automation testing. But there is a big utility to modify any features of the Selenium tool by using IDE if you have basic knowledge of the coding.
Appium and Selenium Comparison Table
Below are the topmost comparisons of Appium and Selenium.
| Basis Of Comparison Between Appium vs Selenium |
Appium |
Selenium |
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General |
Appium is one of the popular open sources for automation testing, especially in any kind of native application, Mobile App like the android app and IOS app, also it can be supported in the hybrid application as well, where application run in both the environment android and IOS. This kind of automation testing ensures of avoiding any kind of systemic break due to any special patch installation after the app working as live in production. Ensuring fill integration testing and avoid one of the huge manual effort done by the tester, which done earlier based on application common test cases designed by the tester. Every time they need to manually test each and every feature of the entire application, but by using Appium, user can easily able to avoid the same and mainly concentrate on testing of changing impacted area for better and quick delivery with proper impact analysis anytime by this kind of automation tool. | Selenium is also one of the very popular automated testing tool mainly designed for any kind of web application; it also supported to all the current popular browsers and every operating system like Windows, Linux or MACOS etc. |
|
Design |
Appium is mainly designed as the HTTP server, as it is going to support any kind of Mobile App, so developed as HTTP server is required for the same. But it mainly following or developing the same in node JS, not using normal Java code or JS code. So for the same reason developer who is willing to use Appium for their automated testing in any kind of mobile app, they have to install Node JS in their system before starting this Appium tool. It is one kind of prerequisite for initializing Appium in the system. | Selenium is mainly designed to maintain automation logic on specifically of web application or websites. It basically designed in that way so that it can able to interact easily with the application by using browser actions automatically. |
Conclusion
Appium vs Selenium both are very popular automation tools used for Mobile App and Web application. As both Appium vs Selenium support almost all programming language, including Java, PHP, C#, it is very easy to use by the developer in any language where it needs to be required. As both Appium vs Selenium requires proper automation testing result, it automatically makes tester live very cool, especially on avoiding any kind of human mistake for manual integration testing.
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This has been a guide to the top difference between Appium vs Selenium. Here we also discuss the Appium vs Selenium key differences along with infographics and a comparison table. And both Appium vs Selenium are also cross-platform test automation frameworks. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –
