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Cucumber vs Selenide: What are the differences?

Introduction

Cucumber and Selenide are two popular tools used in test automation. While both serve the purpose of automating tests, they have some key differences that set them apart. In this article, we will explore the main differences between Cucumber and Selenide.

  1. Integration with BDD Framework: Cucumber is a Behavior Driven Development (BDD) tool that allows you to write test scenarios in a human-readable format using Gherkin syntax. It promotes collaboration between developers, testers, and business stakeholders. On the other hand, Selenide is a UI automation framework that focuses on simplifying web testing by providing a concise and expressive API. It does not have native support for BDD, but you can integrate Selenide with Cucumber or other BDD frameworks if needed.

  2. Test Execution: In Cucumber, test scenarios are executed in a sequential manner where each step is executed one after another. Cucumber generates reports that provide detailed information about the executed scenarios, their status, and any failures encountered. Selenide, on the other hand, executes tests directly using a WebDriver instance. Test cases in Selenide can be executed either in sequence or parallel, depending on the test framework used. Selenide also provides built-in screenshots and error messages for failed tests.

  3. Test Syntax: Cucumber test scenarios are written in Gherkin syntax, which is a natural language representation that focuses on describing the behavior of the system from a user's perspective. Each step in Cucumber is mapped to a step definition, which contains the actual code implementation. Selenide tests are written in a programming language, such as Java, and leverage the Selenide API for interacting with web elements. The syntax used in Selenide is more code-centric and requires programming skills to write and maintain the tests.

  4. UI Interaction: Cucumber focuses on the high-level interaction with the application, where test steps are written in a human-readable format and do not involve low-level UI interactions. It encourages testers to focus on the behavior of the system rather than implementation details. Selenide, on the other hand, provides a rich set of methods and utilities for interacting with web elements and performing actions like clicking, entering text, selecting options, etc. It enables testers to have fine-grained control over the UI interactions.

  5. Maintenance and Flexibility: Cucumber scenarios are written in a declarative style, which makes them more readable and easier to maintain. They encapsulate the test steps and make them independent of the underlying implementation. Any changes in the UI or application logic can be easily handled by updating the corresponding step definitions. Selenide, being a code-centric framework, requires more effort in terms of maintenance as tests are tightly coupled with the code. Changes in the application may require updating the tests as well.

  6. Reporting and Documentation: Cucumber provides detailed reports in various formats, such as HTML, JSON, and XML. These reports include information about the test execution status, failed scenarios, and step-level details. The reports can be easily shared with stakeholders to facilitate collaboration and provide visibility into the testing progress. Selenide, on the other hand, does not provide built-in reporting capabilities but can be integrated with other reporting tools or frameworks to generate customized reports.

In Summary, Cucumber and Selenide differ in their approach to test automation. While Cucumber focuses on behavior-driven development and collaboration, Selenide emphasizes UI automation and simplicity. Understanding these key differences can help you choose the right tool for your automation needs.

Advice on Cucumber and Selenide
Needs advice
on
CypressCypressSelenideSelenide
and
WebdriverIOWebdriverIO

Hi, I am starting out to test an application that is currently being developed - FE: React. BE: Node JS. I want the framework to be able to test all UI scenarios (from simple to complex) and also have the capability to test APIs. I also need to run tests across all OSs and Browsers (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS). I have also looked into react-testing-library and @TestProject.io. Any advice you can give as to which framework would be best and why would be so much appreciated! Thank you!!

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Replies (3)
Recommends
on
PlaywrightPlaywright

You should also definitely look into Playwright, which is a new automation tool from Microsoft building on top of the Puppeteer experience and trying to bring this experience in the cross browser space - very exciting project. Great team. Also CodeceptJS as already Playwright support which at a ton of valuable features on top of Playwright, give it a go!

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Jinesh Khimsaria
Test Automation Specialist at Personal · | 3 upvotes · 72.4K views
Recommends
on
WebdriverIOWebdriverIO

I'm also looking for the same, FE: React & BE: NodeJS. Cypress won't help as it lacks cross-browser testing, it doesn't support all the browsers. I'm still investigating it, but looks like WebdriverIO may fulfil what I'm looking for - Cross-browser testing, integration with CI/CD, running it as a docker service, good support on assertions & reporting of test results. Let me know if you found any information on any of the above mentioned points.

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Recommends
on
CodeceptJSCodeceptJS

Hi Esther, if you really need cross OS and cross device automation Cypress wont help, with WebdriverIO you can do it … and check out CodeceptJS, which is a wrapper around several frameworks (like WebdriverIO) and will support future players (currently for example upcoming Playwright) as well.

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Pros of Cucumber
Pros of Selenide
  • 20
    Simple Syntax
  • 8
    Simple usage
  • 5
    Huge community
  • 3
    Nice report
  • 5
    Nice JAVA API
  • 2
    Very mature API
  • 2
    File upload support
  • 2
    Integrated with WebDriverManager project
  • 2
    Integrated with Selenium-Jupiter framework
  • 1
    Capture screen shots on fail
  • 1
    Cross browser
  • 1
    Proxy server

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Cons of Cucumber
Cons of Selenide
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 1
      Hybrid page model not possible

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    What is Cucumber?

    Cucumber is a tool that supports Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) - a software development process that aims to enhance software quality and reduce maintenance costs.

    What is Selenide?

    It is a library for writing concise, readable, boilerplate-free tests in Java using Selenium WebDriver.

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    What companies use Cucumber?
    What companies use Selenide?
    See which teams inside your own company are using Cucumber or Selenide.
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    What tools integrate with Cucumber?
    What tools integrate with Selenide?

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    What are some alternatives to Cucumber and Selenide?
    Selenium
    Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that. Boring web-based administration tasks can (and should!) also be automated as well.
    RSpec
    Behaviour Driven Development for Ruby. Making TDD Productive and Fun.
    TestNG
    It is a testing framework designed to simplify a broad range of testing needs, it covers all categories of tests: unit, functional, end-to-end, integration, etc.Run your tests in arbitrarily big thread pools with various policies available (all methods in their own thread, one thread per test class, etc.
    JUnit
    JUnit is a simple framework to write repeatable tests. It is an instance of the xUnit architecture for unit testing frameworks.
    Celery
    Celery is an asynchronous task queue/job queue based on distributed message passing. It is focused on real-time operation, but supports scheduling as well.
    See all alternatives