Python vs Selenium

Overview

Python

Stacks262.9K

Followers205.4K

Votes6.9K

GitHub Stars69.7K

Forks33.3K

Selenium

Stacks16.2K

Followers12.6K

Votes527

GitHub Stars33.6K

Forks8.6K

Python vs Selenium: What are the differences?

Introduction

Python and Selenium are both widely used in the field of software testing and automation. While Python is a programming language, Selenium is a web automation tool. However, there are several key differences between Python and Selenium that set them apart from each other.

Syntax: The most noticeable difference between Python and Selenium is their syntax. Python follows a structured and easy-to-read syntax, making it beginner-friendly. On the other hand, Selenium uses a combination of different programming languages such as Java, C#, and Python itself. This syntax difference can affect the ease of writing and maintaining automation scripts.
Purpose: Python is a versatile language used for various purposes, including web development, data analysis, and machine learning. In contrast, Selenium is specifically designed for web automation. It provides a set of libraries and tools that allow developers to interact with web elements and automate tasks such as clicking buttons, filling forms, and verifying page elements.
Integration: Python, being a programming language, can be seamlessly integrated with various other libraries and frameworks. It has a rich ecosystem with extensive support for different domains. On the other hand, Selenium integrates with Python by providing a WebDriver API. This API acts as a bridge between Selenium and the browser, allowing developers to automate web activities.
Installation: Python can be installed on any operating system, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, with just a few simple steps. Selenium, on the other hand, requires additional dependencies to be installed. Developers need to download the Selenium WebDriver and configure it for their specific browser. This additional setup can make the installation process slightly more complex compared to Python.
Testing Scope: Python is a general-purpose programming language that can be used for a wide range of applications, including software testing. Selenium, however, is specifically designed for web testing and automation. While Python can be used to test different types of software, including desktop applications and APIs, Selenium is primarily focused on web testing and may not provide the same level of flexibility for other types of testing.
Development Community: Python has a large and active development community. It has extensive documentation, a wide range of third-party libraries, and a supportive online community. This means that developers can easily find help, resources, and examples for their Python projects. Selenium also has a decent community but is relatively smaller compared to Python. Finding specific community support for Selenium-related queries can sometimes be a bit challenging.

In summary, Python is a versatile programming language used for various purposes, including software testing. Selenium, on the other hand, is a specialized web automation tool specifically designed for automating web tasks. They differ in terms of syntax, purpose, integration, installation process, testing scope, and development community.

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Advice on Python, Selenium

Thomas

Talent Co-Ordinator at Tessian

Mar 11, 2020

Decided

In December we successfully flipped around half a billion monthly API requests from our Ruby on Rails application to some new Python 3 applications. Our Head of Engineering has written a great article as to why we decided to transition from Ruby on Rails to Python 3! Read more about it in the link below.

263k views263k

Comments

Avy

Apr 8, 2020

Needs adviceon

React Native

Python

Flutter

I've been juggling with an app idea and am clueless about how to build it.

A little about the app:

Social network type app ,
Users can create different directories, in those directories post images and/or text that'll be shared on a public dashboard .

Directory creation is the main point of this app. Besides there'll be rooms(groups),chatting system, search operations similar to instagram,push notifications

I have two options:

@{React Native}|tool:2699|, @{Python}|tool:993|, AWS stack or
@{Flutter}|tool:7180|, @{Go}|tool:1005| ( I don't know what stack or tools to use)

722k views722k

Comments

Ítalo

VP Platform Engineering at Lykon

Feb 19, 2020

Decided

We decided to use python to write our ETLs and import them into metabase via a lambda. Before python we tried using Go, but overall go was way more verbose than Python when writing the ETLs. Go also had some issues managing memory when using the S3 upload manager library. This was a deal breaker for us that made us switch to Python.

In the end the solution was much cleaner and maintainable.

261k views261k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Python	Selenium
Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.	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.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 69.7K	GitHub Stars 33.6K
GitHub Forks 33.3K	GitHub Forks 8.6K
Stacks 262.9K	Stacks 16.2K
Followers 205.4K	Followers 12.6K
Votes 6.9K	Votes 527
Pros & Cons
Pros 1186 Great libraries 966 Readable code 848 Beautiful code 789 Rapid development 692 Large community Cons 53 Still divided between python 2 and python 3 28 Performance impact 26 Poor syntax for anonymous functions 22 GIL 20 Package management is a mess	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
Integrations
Django	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Python, Selenium?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

Related Comparisons

Python vs Selenium: What are the differences?

Introduction

Syntax: The most noticeable difference between Python and Selenium is their syntax. Python follows a structured and easy-to-read syntax, making it beginner-friendly. On the other hand, Selenium uses a combination of different programming languages such as Java, C#, and Python itself. This syntax difference can affect the ease of writing and maintaining automation scripts.
Purpose: Python is a versatile language used for various purposes, including web development, data analysis, and machine learning. In contrast, Selenium is specifically designed for web automation. It provides a set of libraries and tools that allow developers to interact with web elements and automate tasks such as clicking buttons, filling forms, and verifying page elements.
Integration: Python, being a programming language, can be seamlessly integrated with various other libraries and frameworks. It has a rich ecosystem with extensive support for different domains. On the other hand, Selenium integrates with Python by providing a WebDriver API. This API acts as a bridge between Selenium and the browser, allowing developers to automate web activities.
Installation: Python can be installed on any operating system, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, with just a few simple steps. Selenium, on the other hand, requires additional dependencies to be installed. Developers need to download the Selenium WebDriver and configure it for their specific browser. This additional setup can make the installation process slightly more complex compared to Python.
Testing Scope: Python is a general-purpose programming language that can be used for a wide range of applications, including software testing. Selenium, however, is specifically designed for web testing and automation. While Python can be used to test different types of software, including desktop applications and APIs, Selenium is primarily focused on web testing and may not provide the same level of flexibility for other types of testing.
Development Community: Python has a large and active development community. It has extensive documentation, a wide range of third-party libraries, and a supportive online community. This means that developers can easily find help, resources, and examples for their Python projects. Selenium also has a decent community but is relatively smaller compared to Python. Finding specific community support for Selenium-related queries can sometimes be a bit challenging.

Python vs Selenium

Overview

Python vs Selenium: What are the differences?