Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Cypress vs Selenide: What are the differences?
1. Architecture and Language: Cypress is built on JavaScript and uses a different architecture than Selenide. Cypress operates directly in the browser and runs alongside the application being tested, allowing for real-time reloading and instant feedback. On the other hand, Selenide uses WebDriver and operates outside the browser, executing commands remotely. This difference in architecture affects how tests are written and executed.
2. Test Execution Speed: Cypress has a reputation for being faster than Selenide due to its ability to directly communicate with the browser and the absence of network calls. Cypress can execute tests in real-time without any additional waiting or synchronization, resulting in faster test execution. In contrast, Selenide relies on WebDriver and requires explicit wait times, leading to potentially slower test runs.
3. DOM Control and Manipulation: Cypress offers a unique feature called Automatic Waiting. It intelligently waits for elements to appear and become interactable before performing actions, without the need for explicit waits or synchronization. This simplifies test code and ensures that tests are more stable. In comparison, Selenide requires explicit waits and synchronization commands to handle asynchronous operations, making the test code more complex.
4. Debugging Capabilities: Cypress provides an extensive set of debugging tools that make it easier to diagnose and troubleshoot issues. It offers real-time reloads, automatic screenshots on failure, video recording, and interactive error messages. Selenide, while supporting screenshots and error messages, may require additional configuration or external libraries for similar debugging capabilities.
5. Cross-browser Testing: Cypress primarily focuses on testing within a single browser, Chrome. It optimizes the testing experience by tightly integrating with Chrome's internals. In contrast, Selenide supports cross-browser testing and can run tests on different browsers by leveraging WebDriver's capabilities. This makes Selenide a better choice for projects requiring extensive cross-browser compatibility testing.
6. Community and Ecosystem: Cypress has gained rapid popularity in recent years and has a growing community. It offers a rich ecosystem of plugins, custom commands, and a centralized dashboard for managing tests. Selenide also has a strong community but may have a slightly smaller ecosystem compared to Cypress. The availability of community support and resources can influence the ease of adoption and development experience.
In Summary, Cypress and Selenide differ in architecture and language, test execution speed, DOM control and manipulation, debugging capabilities, cross-browser testing support, and community ecosystem.
In the company I will be building test automation framework and my new company develops apps mainly using AngularJS/TypeScript. I was planning to build Protractor-Jasmine framework but a friend of mine told me about Cypress and heard that its users are very satisfied with it. I am trying to understand the capabilities of Cypress and as the final goal to differentiate these two tools. Can anyone advice me on this in a nutshell pls...
I've used both Protractor and Cypress extensively. Cypress is the easier and more reliable tool, whereas Protractor is the more powerful tool. Your choice of tool should depend on your specific testing needs. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of each tool:
Cypress advantages:
Faster
More reliable (tends to throw fewer intermittent false failures)
Easier to read code (handles promises gracefully)
Cypress disadvantages:
Cannot switch between browser tabs
Cannot switch to iFrames
Cannot specify clicks or keypresses explicitly as if a real user was interacting
Cannot move the mouse to specific co-ordinates
Sometimes has trouble switching between different top-level domains, so not good for testing external links
Cypress is a newer tool with less extensive documentation and less community support
Protractor advantages:
More powerful because it is Selenium-based - it can switch between tabs, it can handle external links to other domains, it can handle iFrames, simulate keypresses and clicks, and move the mouse to specific co-ordinates within the browser.
More extensive community support and documentation
Protractor disadvantages:
Slower and more brittle - in general there is a higher likelihood of cryptic and/or intermittent errors which may cause your tests to fail even though there is nothing wrong with your application
For highly experienced automation engineers, the fundamental "brittle" nature of Selenium can be worked around - it can be reliable but only if you really know what you are doing
Less graceful handling of promises - relies on async/await or .then to manage the order of execution. Therefore it is a bit harder to read the code.
Harder to set up, and the method of setup impacts its reliability. For example, a hub/node configuration where the selenium jar is on a different physical machine than the browser under test will cause unreliability in your tests. Not everyone knows about this type of thing, so it's common to find Selenium frameworks that are set up poorly.
It's probably better to use Cypress if
you're at a smaller company and have a close relationship with developers who can help write hooks or stubs in their code to assist your testing
you don't need to do things like switch between tabs or test links to external top-level domains
It's probably better to use Protractor if
You might need to switch between tabs or test external links to other domains within the scope of your framework
You want to use a more accurate simulation of how a real user interacts with a browser (i.e. click at this location, type these keys)
You're at a company where you won't have any support from developers in writing hooks or stubs to make their code more testable in a less powerful framework like Cypress
Please try Handow, the e2e tool basing on Puppeteer.
Gherkin syntax compatible
Chrome/Chromium orentied, driven by Puppeteer engine
Complete JavaScript programming
Create test suites rapidly without coding (or a little bit), basing on built-in steps library
Schedule test with plans and arrange stories with sequential stages
Fast running, execute story groups in parallel by multi-workers
Built-in single page report render
Cover page view, REST API and cookies test
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!!
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!
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.
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.
As we all know testing is an important part of any application. To assist with our testing we are going to use both Cypress and Jest. We feel these tools complement each other and will help us get good coverage of our code. We will use Cypress for our end to end testing as we've found it quite user friendly. Jest will be used for our unit tests because we've seen how many larger companies use it with great success.
Pros of Cypress
- Open source29
- Great documentation22
- Simple usage20
- Fast18
- Cross Browser testing10
- Easy us with CI9
- Npm install cypress only5
- Good for beginner automation engineers1
Pros of Selenide
- Nice JAVA API5
- Very mature API2
- File upload support2
- Integrated with WebDriverManager project2
- Integrated with Selenium-Jupiter framework2
- Capture screen shots on fail1
- Cross browser1
- Proxy server1
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of Cypress
- Cypress is weak at cross-browser testing21
- Switch tabs : Cypress can'nt support14
- No iFrame support12
- No page object support9
- No multiple domain support9
- No file upload support8
- No support for multiple tab control8
- No xPath support8
- No support for Safari7
- Cypress doesn't support native app7
- Re-run failed tests retries not supported yet7
- No support for multiple browser control7
- $20/user/thread for reports5
- Adobe4
- Using a non-standard automation protocol4
- Not freeware4
- No 'WD wire protocol' support3
Cons of Selenide
- Hybrid page model not possible1