Selenium VS Cucumber - When to Use?

• What is Cucumber?

Cucumber is a Behavior Driven Development(BDD) tool that helps to develop the acceptance and functional tests for your application. Cucumber uses the Gherkin syntax, so it makes tests more readable for anyone. Cucumber supports multiple programming languages such as Java, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, C# etc...

• What Is Selenium?

Selenium is an open-source test automation tool, it supports many programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, Python, C#, etc. Selenium provides libraries to launch the browser and perform the action on the browser. Selenium supports almost any type of Web application Testing. However, it doesn’t support desktop application testing. Selenium requires coding knowledge, testers need to build the framework using one of the supported languages.

Selenium VS Cucumber - When to Use?

When Should I Use Selenium Instead of Cucumber?

Selenium is a web application automation tool. It can be used to automate the application testing. Selenium requires coding knowledge and more technical skills. When acceptance criteria are not provided in story format, usually testers need to derive the test cases using acceptance criteria. Selenium is more suited for developers who need precise control over browser automation without the need for plain language test scenarios. Therefore, Selenium is preferred when detailed, technical testing is required, and there's no necessity for non-technical team members to write or understand the test scripts.

• When Should I Use Cucumber Instead of Selenium?

Cucumber is a tool preferred by businesses and it follows the BDD format for structure. If the acceptance criteria are provided in the story or feature(Gherkin) format, then it is easy to convert them to automation using the Cucumber. As mentioned earlier, if you already have the Cucumber automation framework in place, you can easily map the test cases using the Gherkin structure. This requires less technical skills, testers just need to provide the test cases in Gherkin format.

Selenium and Cucumber are the most popular tools in the market. The cucumber framework doesn’t require programming knowledge, once the setup is completed. This means that before using the Cucumber framework you need to set up the automation framework. Framework setup requires a deep level of technical knowledge and is time-consuming. When you consider an organization, no matter which framework the organization adopts, it requires technical resources, either to set up the automation framework or to write the test cases. Considering this, organizations are shifting towards the no-code automation tool like Testsigma.

• What Are the Advantages of Cucumber and Selenium?

Cucumber and Selenium have many advantages. Let’s understand them in detail.

• Advantages of Selenium: 

1. Cross-Browser Compatibility: Selenium supports multiple browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer, making it easier to test web applications on different platforms.

2. Platform Independence: Selenium is a cross-platform tool, which means it can be used on different operating systems like Windows, Linux, and macOS.

3. Support for Multiple Programming Languages: Selenium supports multiple programming languages, including Java, C#, Python, Ruby, and others. This allows developers and testers to choose the language they are most comfortable with.

4. Large Community and Resources: Selenium has a large and active community. This means there is a wealth of documentation, tutorials, and forums available, making it easier for users to find help and solutions to common problems.

5. Integration with Other Tools: Selenium can be easily integrated with other tools and frameworks, such as TestNG, JUnit, Maven, and Jenkins, enhancing its capabilities and making it suitable for various testing needs.

6. Flexibility and Extensibility: Selenium can be extended for various functionalities through its APIs, making it adaptable to different testing scenarios.

7. Support for Parallel Execution: Selenium allows for the parallel execution of test scripts, which can significantly reduce the overall test execution time.

• Advantages of Cucumber:

1. Less technical knowledge to write tests: Through Cucumber framework setup requires in-depth technical knowledge, once the setup is complete, anyone can write the test cases using the Gherkin syntax.

2. Easy to debug: As Cucumber uses the plain English-like language if your test cases fail, you can easily debug by looking at the test steps.

3. Re-usability: A higher degree of reusability can be achieved using the Cucumber. If your tests share similar steps, no need to write them again, Cucumber automatically maps them to existing test steps.

4. More readable test reports: Cucumber reports are more readable and easy to understand for stakeholders. Hence, no further clarification is required when it is shared.

• Selenium VS Cucumber: How they’re used Together?

Selenium is a tool for test automation, Cucumber is a BDD tool. Interestingly you can combine them to use the power of both Selenium and Cucumber. In fact, Cucumber cannot run independently without any test automation tools. Cucumber works well with Selenium.

Below are some key pointers on how Selenium and Cucumber framework work together.

• Cucumber is integrated as an entry point for the framework

• The cucumber framework helps to write the test cases in a plain English-like structure(Gherkin)

• Each step in Cucumber is mapped to a step definition file in the background; generally, those are written in one of the programming languages.

• The step definition file uses the Selenium libraries and launches the browser

• Selenium helps to perform specific actions or simulate the user actions and record the output

• Cucumber then interprets those outputs based on the reporter implementation, pass or fail results will be provided

• Considering the above, once the framework is mature, the need for step definition file implementation is reduced as most of the scenarios are already handled, it can be reused with different parameters.