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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Testing Frameworks
  4. Browser Testing
  5. Nightwatchjs vs Selenium

Nightwatchjs vs Selenium

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Selenium
Selenium
Stacks16.2K
Followers12.6K
Votes527
GitHub Stars33.6K
Forks8.6K
Nightwatchjs
Nightwatchjs
Stacks214
Followers323
Votes11
GitHub Stars11.9K
Forks1.4K

Nightwatchjs vs Selenium: What are the differences?

Introduction

Nightwatch.js and Selenium are both popular frameworks for web automation testing. While they serve the same purpose, there are some key differences between them that developers need to consider before choosing either one. In this article, we will explore the major differences between Nightwatch.js and Selenium.

  1. Simplicity: Nightwatch.js is known for its simplicity and user-friendly syntax. It offers a simple and easy-to-understand API that allows developers to write tests quickly. On the other hand, Selenium requires more complex setups and has a steeper learning curve, making it better suited for experienced testers.

  2. Built-in Test Runner: Nightwatch.js comes with a built-in test runner that helps in executing test cases without any additional setup. This eliminates the need for external libraries or tools. Selenium does not have a built-in test runner, and developers need to use third-party tools such as TestNG, JUnit, or TestRunner to execute their test cases.

  3. Cross-Browser Testing: Nightwatch.js provides built-in support for cross-browser testing. It allows developers to easily test their applications across multiple browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer. Selenium also offers cross-browser testing capabilities but requires additional configurations and dependencies.

  4. Parallel Execution: Nightwatch.js enables parallel test execution, allowing multiple test cases to run simultaneously. This significantly reduces the overall execution time, especially for large test suites. Selenium does support parallel execution but requires additional setup and configuration.

  5. Reporting: Nightwatch.js provides detailed and visually appealing HTML reports by default. These reports help in analyzing test results and identifying any issues or failures. Selenium does not provide built-in reporting capabilities and requires the use of external libraries or custom implementations for generating reports.

  6. Support and Community: Nightwatch.js has an active community and a supportive user base. It offers comprehensive documentation, tutorials, and forums, making it easy to find assistance and solutions to common problems. Selenium, being a more established framework, has a much larger community and a wealth of resources available for support.

In Summary, Nightwatch.js offers a simpler syntax, built-in test runner, cross-browser testing, parallel execution, built-in reporting, and a supportive community, making it a suitable choice for developers looking for ease of use and productivity in web automation testing.

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Advice on Selenium, Nightwatchjs

Shivam
Shivam

Mar 5, 2020

Needs advice

we are having one web application developed in Reacts.js. in the application, we have only 4 to 5 pages that we need to test. I am having experience in selenium with java. Please suggets which tool I should use. and why ............................ ............................ .............................

241k views241k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Selenium
Selenium
Nightwatchjs
Nightwatchjs

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.

Nightwatch.js is an easy to use Node.js based End-to-End (E2E) testing solution for browser based apps and websites. It uses the powerful Selenium WebDriver API to perform commands and assertions on DOM elements.

-
e2e; test; javascript; nodejs
Statistics
GitHub Stars
33.6K
GitHub Stars
11.9K
GitHub Forks
8.6K
GitHub Forks
1.4K
Stacks
16.2K
Stacks
214
Followers
12.6K
Followers
323
Votes
527
Votes
11
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 177
    Automates browsers
  • 154
    Testing
  • 101
    Essential tool for running test automation
  • 24
    Record-Playback
  • 24
    Remote Control
Cons
  • 8
    Flaky tests
  • 4
    Slow as needs to make browser (even with no gui)
  • 2
    Update browser drivers
Pros
  • 3
    Open source
  • 2
    Testing
  • 2
    Automates browsers
  • 1
    Better cross browser (use selenium)
  • 1
    Cross-Browser Testing
Cons
  • 2
    No automatic wait
  • 1
    Configuration complexity
  • 1
    Less flexibility
  • 1
    Limited native mobile app support
  • 1
    Limited browser support
Integrations
No integrations available
Node.js
Node.js

What are some alternatives to Selenium, Nightwatchjs?

BrowserStack

BrowserStack

BrowserStack is the leading test platform built for developers & QAs to expand test coverage, scale & optimize testing with cross-browser, real device cloud, accessibility, visual testing, test management, and test observability.

Sauce Labs

Sauce Labs

Cloud-based automated testing platform enables developers and QEs to perform functional, JavaScript unit, and manual tests with Selenium or Appium on web and mobile apps. Videos and screenshots for easy debugging. Secure and CI-ready.

LambdaTest

LambdaTest

LambdaTest platform provides secure, scalable and insightful test orchestration for website, and mobile app testing. Customers at different points in their DevOps lifecycle can leverage Automation and/or Manual testing on LambdaTest.

Karma

Karma

Karma is not a testing framework, nor an assertion library. Karma just launches a HTTP server, and generates the test runner HTML file you probably already know from your favourite testing framework. So for testing purposes you can use pretty much anything you like.

Playwright

Playwright

It is a Node library to automate the Chromium, WebKit and Firefox browsers with a single API. It enables cross-browser web automation that is ever-green, capable, reliable and fast.

Rainforest QA

Rainforest QA

Rainforest gives you the reliability of a QA team and the speed of automation, without the hassle of managing a team or the pain of writing automated tests.

WebdriverIO

WebdriverIO

WebdriverIO lets you control a browser or a mobile application with just a few lines of code. Your test code will look simple, concise and easy to read.

TestingBot

TestingBot

TestingBot provides automated and Manual cross browser testing in the cloud. Make sure your website looks ok in all browsers.

Ghost Inspector

Ghost Inspector

It lets you create and manage UI tests that check specific functionality in your website or application. We execute these automated browser tests continuously from the cloud and alert you if anything breaks.

Selenide

Selenide

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

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