Appium Vs Selenium: 5 Key Differences

As innovations continue to develop rapidly, companies must make use of all available means to maximize production, increase productivity, and reduce costs. More companies have begun to embrace an agile approach to software testing company development for this reason. As a result, the automation of test cycles has become mandatory for research teams.

What is Appium Testing?

Automation testing lets companies release new software and web app functionality quickly. Test automation systems such as Selenium and Appium have become buzzwords in the test community for this very reason.

Appium vs Selenium

The purpose of this article is to highlight the Appium and selenium differences. So let’s get started. Selenium and Appium are both open-source test automation platforms. Selenium optimizes automatic web application testing by enabling multiple browsers, operating systems, and programming languages. Appium comes with features designed to simplify automated testing of native, web, and hybrid applications.

Testers may use Selenium to test different websites and web applications operating on desktop browsers. Appium can be used to assess various types of mobile applications running on iOS and Android platforms. But Appium uses Selenium WebDriver to drive iOS, Android, and Windows applications. It also uses the WebDriver JSON wire protocol to run iOS and Android sessions. However, the two commonly used test automation systems also vary from each other in terms of functionality, usability, and usage. Testers need to consider the significant differences between Selenium and Appium to choose the correct test automation platform.

Also Read: Know About Appium Mobile Testing

Appium vs Selenium

Below are the points to compare Appium vs Selenium:

1. Concept of Design

Selenium has been developed as a test automation suite for websites and web applications. It was designed to speed up the testing of web applications by automatically monitoring browser behavior. On the other hand, Appium has been built as an HTTP server using NodeJS. Testers must install NodeJS on the device as a prerequisite for initializing and using the Appium server.

2. WebDriver

Testers can select from two different sections of Selenium – Selenium WebDriver and Selenium IDE. WebDriver makes it to be simpler for developers to build browser-based regression automation tests and suites. It also helps testers to spread test cases seamlessly through several environments. Appium automates the testing of mobile applications by using WebDriver. It operates iOS and Android sessions via the JSON wire protocol of the WebDriver.

3. Platform Support

Both Selenium and Appium are cross-platform testing automation systems. Selenium speeds up the testing of web applications by promoting major desktop browsers and operating systems. On the other hand, Appium supports Windows together with major mobile platforms such as iOS and Android.

4. Support for Programming Language

Selenium supports a range of widely used programming languages – Java, PHP, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and C#. Testers, therefore, have the option of writing test scripts in a variety of programming languages. Appium supports all programming languages of the Selenium client library. Unlike Selenium, Appium has the features to build test scripts instantly.

5. Use Cases

Selenium is a test automation system for the testing of web applications. However, Selenium can also be used by testers to simplify web services and API testing. They can also use Selenium to simplify the testing of mobile applications. On the other hand, Appium comes with features for automating mobile app monitoring. Testers may use the Appium to test native, mobile web, and hybrid applications. They can also use Appium to monitor applications running on iOS and Android platforms and tablets. Since Appium is specifically designed for automated testing on any form of mobile app, it has mainly been built as an HTTP server based on Node JS. 

Thus, anyone willing to use Appium for their Mobile App Automation Testing needs to install Node JS on their setup device. The deployment of Node JS is therefore one of the preconditions for the installation of Appium by any user. Whereas Selenium is specifically designed to produce automation testing for any form of website or web application at any time in any browser. 

Since the web application is primarily running in one of the specific web browsers, Selenium automatically uses the same, targeting all features with one specific purpose of communicating with the web application by automatically regulating the variety of web browsers. It refers to describing browser behavior in a particular approach such that the application can be easily run in the browser without any manual interference. 

It automatically monitors any kind of effect on the current feature of the entire application easily by conducting this kind of automated testing and delivering the desired result without any manual effort. However, there are scenarios where Manual Testing Services can complement automated testing, especially for intricate functionalities requiring human observation and judgment.

There are two types of options available when setting up an automated testing environment using Appium vs Selenium, one is a Web Driver and the other is an IDE. Appium does not endorse an IDE-style feature that is often used by the Site Driver to design and set up some kind of automated testing in a mobile app, Android, or IOS. Following a specific protocol name, JSON wire, which is one of the most common protocols for Web Driver, this protocol mainly drives Android and IOS sessions and intelligently completes automation testing. 

Selenium will adopt two methods, the web driver and the IDE. The Web driver is very easy to manage as it has some of the default features to communicate with the Web browser at any time and can easily monitor their operation as per application functionality running automatically without any manual effort. Web drivers also offer a very good utility in spreading a lot of test cases independently through different environments available for Selenium auto testing.

An IDE is superior to a tester who has the basic concept of coding like a developer. Normally, both developers and testers need to work to set up this form of Selenium Automation Testing. But there is a great utility to change any kind of functionality of the Selenium tool by using IDE if you have basic coding skills. Both Selenium and Appium are open-source and cross-platform automation testing platforms. 

Selenium comes with features designed to simplify the creation of numerous web applications. At the same time, Appium accelerates the testing of native, hybrid, and mobile web applications by leveraging Selenium WebDriver. It is therefore always necessary for the testers to keep in mind the specific project needs when comparing Selenium and Appium.