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20 Disadvantages or limitations of using Selenium
The following are the disadvantages or limitations of using Selenium:
Note: The below list also includes the scenarios that Selenium cannot automate apart from the disadvantages or limitations of Selenium.
- > Selenium cannot automate desktop applications
- > We have tools like QTP/UFT, TestComplete, Winnium etc. to perform the automation testing of Desktop Applications
- > Selenium cannot automate mobile applications
- > Appium is the best tool for automating the mobile applications
- > Selenium is not the tool for automating Web Services like Soap or Rest
- > We have dedicated tools like Rest Assured Framework, Apache HTTP Client, SoapUI, PostMan etc. to automate them
- > Can be automated using Selenium up to some limit
- > Selenium requires technical skills to automate the tests
- > Test engineers should be good at any of the programming languages like Java, Python, C#, Ruby, JavaScript etc. to create effective automation tests.
- > Selenium doesn’t have built-in Object Repository for maintaining objects at a centralized location
- > Tools like QTP/UFT etc. have this feature.
- > Selenium doesn’t have any reporting capability by default
- > Selenium has to integrate with TestNG, Extent Reports etc. to get the reporting feature
- > Selenium doesn’t have the capability to test using the images by default
- > Selenium integrate with tools like Sikuli to perform Image Based Testing
- > Selenium cannot handle Window Based pop-ups which appear while working with the Web Application functionalities like Upload File etc.
- > Selenium integrates with tools like AutoIt to handle such Window Based pop-ups
- > Selenium cannot automate Captcha
- > The purpose of Captcha is to separate robots from humans.
- > The best way to test them is to ask the development team to disable them or make them static
- > Selenium cannot automate Bar codes or QR codes
- > The purpose of Bar codes or QR codes is to uniquely identify something
- > Selenium cannot automate OTP
- > The purpose of OTP is for security authentication reasons
- > Selenium cannot automate Video Streaming
- > Selenium won’t identify video controls
- > Selenium can’t test the content that is playing inside the video
- > Selenium cannot automate audio clips
- > Selenium can’t test the content that is played in audio clips
- > Selenium doesn’t have its own IDE for creating or executing scripts
- > Selenium needs other IDEs available in the market like Eclipse IDE, IntelliJ etc.
- > Where as other tools like QTP/UFT, Test Complete etc. have their own IDEs for creating and executing automation scripts
- > As Selenium is an Open Source and free tool, there is no vendor or official support
- > In case of tools like QTP/UFT, HP company provides the official support
- > In case of Selenium, there are numerous helping communities though
- > Creating test environments or test scripts in Selenium takes time
- > In Selenium, we have to configure everything on our own
- > Tools like QTP/UFT, Test Complete etc., have inbuilt features to create everything
- > No default tools for Test Management is available in the Selenium Suite of tools
- > In case of QTP/UFT, we have QC/ALM tool from the same HP family
- > For Selenium, we have to integrate with other Test Management tools available in the market
- > Selenium is the not the effective solution to automate Performance Testing
- > Thought performance testing can be automated using Selenium, its not an effective solution
- > There are specific tools like JMeter, LoadRunner etc. which are effective in performance testing
- > Selenium is not the effective solution to automate Security Testing
- > Though Security Testing can be automated to some extent using Selenium, its not an effective solution
- > There are specific tools like BurpSuite etc. which are effective in Security Testing
- > Selenium cannot automate Chat Bots
- > There are separate tools like Botium etc. to automate chat bots.
- > Other things that cannot be automated using Selenium
- > Real life scenarios like swiping a card, printing, scanning etc.
- > Let me know in comments of this blog post, if you find something that I missed in this list.
Watch this video on “20 Disadvantages or limitations of using Selenium Automation Tool” for more clarity:
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- > To learn more about Selenium, continue to the next post (Click on Next Post link below)
- > Check complete Selenium Tutorial Contents here (Click here)
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Thanks for these articles.
Could you please post the articles about the selenium architecture and how it works? I’m waiting for those articles from you. Really that would be helpful for beginners.
Yes, will post in my future articles 🙂
Thanks Arun.