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Selenium vs Webpack: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the key differences between Selenium and Webpack.

  1. Installation and Purpose: Selenium is a testing framework mainly used for automating web browsers, allowing developers to write test scripts in multiple programming languages to interact with web applications. On the other hand, Webpack is a static module bundler commonly used in web development to bundle JavaScript modules and other web assets. It helps optimize the performance and build process of web applications.

  2. Scope: Selenium focuses on automating web browsers and conducting functional testing, making it ideal for end-to-end testing scenarios. On the contrary, Webpack is primarily utilized during the development phase for bundling and optimizing web assets, enhancing the overall performance and loading time of the application.

  3. Language Compatibility: Selenium supports various programming languages such as Java, Python, C#, and JavaScript, allowing developers to choose their preferred language for writing test scripts. Webpack, on the other hand, is mainly used with JavaScript projects, as it is specifically built for bundling JavaScript modules.

  4. Integration: Selenium can be integrated with various testing frameworks, libraries, and CI/CD tools, making it compatible with different software development workflows. It can be used in combination with tools like TestNG, JUnit, and Jenkins. Webpack, on the other hand, smoothly integrates with other development tools like Babel, TypeScript, and CSS preprocessors, enabling seamless module bundling and asset optimization.

  5. Primary Usage: Selenium is primarily used for automated testing, enabling developers to simulate user interactions, validate functionalities, and ensure the application's correctness and behavior across different browsers. Webpack, on the other hand, is widely used to bundle and optimize JavaScript modules, CSS files, and other web assets. It helps reduce the number of HTTP requests and improves the performance of web applications.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Selenium has a large and active community, with extensive online documentation, resources, and support available. It has been widely adopted in the industry and has a robust ecosystem of tools and frameworks built around it. Webpack also has a thriving community, with a wide range of plugins and loaders available to extend its functionalities and meet various development needs.

In summary, Selenium is primarily used for automated testing, while Webpack is a static module bundler used during the development phase. Selenium supports multiple programming languages, integrates with various testing frameworks, and focuses on functional testing, whereas Webpack is specific to JavaScript projects, enhances performance, and facilitates optimization of web assets. Both have strong communities and ecosystems supporting their respective use cases.

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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 ............................ ............................ .............................

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Replies (1)
Prashanth Marappa
Senior Software Engineer at Mphasis · | 1 upvotes · 232.6K views
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with the help of selenium we can automate react js for functional testing

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Decisions about Selenium and Webpack
Aleksandr Filatov
Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · | 4 upvotes · 297.6K views
Why migrated?

I could define the next points why we have to migrate:

  • Decrease build time of our application. (It was the main cause).
  • Also jspm install takes much more time than npm install.
  • Many config files for SystemJS and JSPM. For Webpack you can use just one main config file, and you can use some separate config files for specific builds using inheritance and merge them.
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We mostly use rollup to publish package onto NPM. For most all other use cases, we use the Meteor build tool (probably 99% of the time) for publishing packages. If you're using Node on FHIR you probably won't need to know rollup, unless you are somehow working on helping us publish front end user interface components using FHIR. That being said, we have been migrating away from Atmosphere package manager towards NPM. As we continue to migrate away, we may publish other NPM packages using rollup.

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Pros of Selenium
Pros of Webpack
  • 177
    Automates browsers
  • 154
    Testing
  • 101
    Essential tool for running test automation
  • 24
    Record-Playback
  • 24
    Remote Control
  • 8
    Data crawling
  • 7
    Supports end to end testing
  • 6
    Easy set up
  • 6
    Functional testing
  • 4
    The Most flexible monitoring system
  • 3
    End to End Testing
  • 3
    Easy to integrate with build tools
  • 2
    Comparing the performance selenium is faster than jasm
  • 2
    Record and playback
  • 2
    Compatible with Python
  • 2
    Easy to scale
  • 2
    Integration Tests
  • 0
    Integrated into Selenium-Jupiter framework
  • 309
    Most powerful bundler
  • 182
    Built-in dev server with livereload
  • 142
    Can handle all types of assets
  • 87
    Easy configuration
  • 22
    Laravel-mix
  • 4
    Overengineered, Underdeveloped
  • 2
    Makes it easy to bundle static assets
  • 2
    Webpack-Encore
  • 1
    Redundant
  • 1
    Better support in Browser Dev-Tools

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Cons of Selenium
Cons of Webpack
  • 8
    Flaky tests
  • 4
    Slow as needs to make browser (even with no gui)
  • 2
    Update browser drivers
  • 15
    Hard to configure
  • 5
    No clear direction
  • 2
    Spaghetti-Code out of the box
  • 2
    SystemJS integration is quite lackluster
  • 2
    Loader architecture is quite a mess (unreliable/buggy)
  • 2
    Fire and Forget mentality of Core-Developers

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What is 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.

What is Webpack?

A bundler for javascript and friends. Packs many modules into a few bundled assets. Code Splitting allows to load parts for the application on demand. Through "loaders" modules can be CommonJs, AMD, ES6 modules, CSS, Images, JSON, Coffeescript, LESS, ... and your custom stuff.

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What companies use Selenium?
What companies use Webpack?
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What tools integrate with Selenium?
What tools integrate with Webpack?

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What are some alternatives to Selenium and Webpack?
Protractor
Protractor is an end-to-end test framework for Angular and AngularJS applications. Protractor runs tests against your application running in a real browser, interacting with it as a user would.
Cypress
Cypress is a front end automated testing application created for the modern web. Cypress is built on a new architecture and runs in the same run-loop as the application being tested. As a result Cypress provides better, faster, and more reliable testing for anything that runs in a browser. Cypress works on any front-end framework or website.
Nightwatchjs
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.
Puppeteer
Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome over the DevTools Protocol. It can also be configured to use full (non-headless) Chrome.
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.
See all alternatives