What is Selenium IDE? Selenium IDE Tips and Tutorial

Selenium Recorder (Selenium IDE) is a tool for recording and launching application tests. It was created by Shinya Kasatani in 2006 (sic!) and is based on „record & playback" idea, which nowadays is no longer a novelty. The problem with most of the tools available on the market (including Selenium IDE) is not the outdated idea, which basics still can be perceived as elegant, but its realisation. Below we listed the biggest limitations that can be directed towards Selenium IDE and solutions to them offered by the codeless tool named BugBug.

What is Selenium?

Selenium is a powerful suite of tools that support the automation of web browsers, enabling developers and testers to create automated tests to validate web applications across different browsers and platforms. Its components, including Selenium IDE, WebDriver, and Grid, offer versatile testing solutions tailored to various needs within the software development lifecycle.

Getting Started with Selenium IDE

The tool is available as an add-on for Mozilla Firefox and as an extension for Google Chrome. To get started, simply navigate to the respective browser's web store. Click "Add to Browser" and follow the prompts to complete the installation. Once installed, the IDE icon will appear in the top right corner of the browser, indicating it's ready for use.

Creating Your First Test - Selenium IDE Tutorial

1. Launch the app: Click the IDE icon in the right corner of the browser to open the IDE.
2. Record Your Interactions: Click the 'Record a new test in a new project' option, give your project a name, and enter the URL of the weba application you want to test. IDE will then start recording your interactions with the browser, such as clicks, form submissions, and navigation.
3. Executing Commands: As you interact with the web application, IDE records these actions as Selenese commands. You can view, edit, and add new commands manually in the IDE interface. Common commands include click for simulating mouse clicks, type for inputting text, and verify for checking the state of the application.
4. Adding Assertions and Control Flow: To make your tests more robust, you can add assertions to verify the presence of elements or specific conditions within the web page. Control flow constructs like if, else, and while can be used to add logic to your tests, allowing for more dynamic execution paths.
5. Running Tests: After recording, you can execute your tests directly within the application by clicking the 'Run' command. The tool will playback your interactions, following the commands and control flows you've defined.

Advanced Features

• Breakpoints: You can set breakpoints in your test to pause execution, allowing you to inspect the state of the application manually.
• Executing Tests in Multiple Browsers: While IDE is an add-on for Firefox and Chrome, the tests can be exported and run through Selenium WebDriver in different browsers and programming languages, enhancing test coverage and flexibility.
• Reusing Tests: Application supports the reuse of test cases within other tests, promoting modularity and reducing duplication.

Limitations and Considerations

Selenium IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a powerful tool for automating web browser testing. Despite its usefulness, there are several disadvantages associated with its use:

1. Limited Programming Logic: It primarily operates through record and playback, with minimal support for complex programming logic. This limits the ability to implement conditional statements, loops, and other sophisticated logic within tests, which can be critical for more advanced testing scenarios.
2. Browser Dependency: It's a browser extension available for Firefox and Chrome. Tests created with it are typically dependent on the specific browser it was developed on, potentially causing issues when running tests across different browsers or versions.
3. Scalability Issues: While it's excellent for creating quick tests, it may not be the best tool for large-scale test suites. Managing a vast number of tests, especially those requiring complex setup or teardown operations, can become cumbersome.
4. Lack of Integration with Other Tools: it may not integrate seamlessly with other tools used in software development and testing processes, such as Continuous Integration (CI) systems, test management software, or advanced reporting tools. This limitation can hinder the overall efficiency of the testing and development workflow.
5. Limited Error Handling: Error handling is relatively basic. The tool may not offer sophisticated mechanisms for dealing with unexpected events or errors during test execution, which can be crucial for maintaining test robustness and reliability.

Check also our guide on the best Selenium Alternative.

Is Selenium IDE for Chrome?

It's important to note that while the tool is specifically designed for Chrome and Firefox, tests can be exported to WebDriver code. This code can then be run against other browsers supported by Selenium WebDriver, such as Safari, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge, among others. This feature significantly extends the utility of the application beyond its native browser support, enabling broader test coverage across different environments.

Is Selenium IDE Useful?

Selenium IDE is incredibly useful for certain testing scenarios and user groups. Its main advantages include:

• Ease of Use: It provides a user-friendly interface for recording and playing back tests, making it accessible to non-programmers or those new to automated testing.
• Quick Test Creation: It allows for rapid test script creation for bug reproduction, exploratory testing, and sanity checks without the need for in-depth programming knowledge.
• Learning Tool: It serves as an excellent platform for beginners to learn about Selenium and automated testing concepts.
• Test Prototyping: It can be used to quickly prototype test scenarios before refining them in Selenium WebDriver for more complex testing needs.

However, its usefulness might be limited for complex test automation scenarios that require extensive customization, parameterization, and cross-browser testing on a large scale. For such cases, Selenium WebDriver combined with Selenium Grid is often a better choice.

Selenium IDE vs WebDriver

Selenium IDE and Selenium WebDriver serve different needs in the test automation world. Selenium IDE is a browser extension (for Chrome and Firefox) that allows for quick, record-and-playback testing—ideal for beginners or those doing preliminary testing and simple workflows. It's great for getting started without writing code.

In contrast, Selenium WebDriver is a powerful automation framework that allows developers and QA engineers to write custom scripts in languages like Java, Python, or JavaScript. It's better suited for in-depth testing, complex scenarios, and integration with CI/CD pipelines. While IDE is easier to use, WebDriver is far more flexible and scalable—making it the preferred choice for large projects and reliable smoke testing within the software development life cycle.

BugBug - A Modern, Codeless Tool

BugBug is a codeless test automation tool designed for modern SaaS teams who want to move fast without getting bogged down in code. It lets you create, run, and maintain end-to-end tests directly in the browser—no technical skills required. Perfect for smoke testing, regression testing, or basic UI checks, BugBug fits seamlessly into your development workflow. Unlike most tools, it runs tests in your local browser environment, making it super fast and stable. Whether you’re a tester, product manager, or solo founder, BugBug gives you full control over test automation with minimal effort.

Key Features:

1. Codeless Test Recorder – Easily create tests by interacting with your app, no coding needed.
2. Edit & Rewind – Rerun any part of your test from any step, without starting from scratch.
3. Local Test Execution – Run tests in your own browser for faster results and fewer false failures.
4. Cloud Scheduling – Automatically run tests at set intervals or after deployments.
5. CI/CD Integration – Connect BugBug with GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or any pipeline with one-click setup.
6. Free Forever Plan – Unlimited tests, projects, and team members, perfect for startups and growing teams.

Generation of Improper Element Selectors

• Selenium IDE: Struggles with generating effective selectors, especially in modern web development environments that use CSS-in-JS, leading to manual adjustments by users.
• BugBug: Offers customizable selector generation, allowing users to prioritize different types of selectors according to project needs, significantly reducing manual effort and improving test reliability.

While recording the application tests, the newest version of Selenium IDE is able to generate several selectors for the element with which the interaction was made. The problem is that this tool doesn't give you the possibility to configure which type (or types) of selectors should be set as default ones. It also prefers wrong approach to the generation of selectors, based on the names of the CSS classes. Nowadays, when CSS-in-JS approach is becoming more and more popular (i.a. due to styled-components, which generate random class names), it makes the user responsible for modification of all selectors generated during the recording session. The result is that the work that should be automatically done by the tool is done manually and at a much slower pace by the user.

Check also our choice for the best Selenium Alternative.

During a recording session, BugBug (just as Selenium IDE) generates many selectors for the elements with which interaction was made. The difference is that in this case the user decides about the hierarchy of the generated selectors. It can be easily modified in the configuration of the project:

Misleading Process of Replaying Steps

• Selenium IDE: Partially emulates user behavior through JavaScript, which can lead to unpredictable test outcomes.
• BugBug: Utilizes the Chrome DevTools Protocol for more accurate emulation of user actions, including comprehensive event sequences for actions like clicks, enhancing test reliability for complex applications.

Test Isolation and Cleanup

Majority of the record & playback tools has a problem with performing the tests separately. It results in a situation, when launch of the particular test impacts another one. The problem resides in the fact that cookies or localStorage mechanism in the browser are shared between windows and tabs. When you use Selenium IDE, you have to always delete cookies (or localStorage) and remember about the necessity to clear this data between the tests.

• Selenium IDE: Does not inherently isolate tests, requiring manual cleanup of cookies or localStorage, which can affect subsequent tests.
• BugBug: Automatically performs tests in isolation using Incognito mode, avoiding cross-test data contamination and simplifying test setup.

Even though the problem described above is simply burdensome, it also causes flaky tests. To prevent this, application tests in BugBug are by default performed separately with the use of Incognito mode in the browser. Thanks to that QA who builds the tests doesn't have to remember about cookies, localStorage and other data sharing mechanisms in the browser. Tests are isolated regardless of whether you launch them in the browser or in the cloud.

Cloud Testing Support

Selenium IDE was created many years ago, when cloud and SaaS services weren't so widespread as they are nowadays. As a result, Selenium IDE functions only as the browser ad-on and doesn't offer testing in the cloud. Tests created with the use of Selenium IDE can be exported to the chosen programming language and then launched within your own infrastructure (or with the use of some commercial solution).

Solution to the problem provided by the BugBug:

BugBug from the very beginning was designed as a tool that aims at supporting the whole testing process (end-to-end). It enables for:

• recording and easy editing of the tests.
• launching of the tests locally, within user's browser, in order to verify the tests.
• planning and launching application tests in the cloud (through www interface as well as CLI tool).

Look in our previous post to see 10 features every test automation tool should have.

Thanks to that you receive one, integrated tool that can be used for creation and launching of the tests as well.

• Selenium IDE: Primarily a browser extension without native cloud testing capabilities, requiring export and external execution for cloud tests.
• BugBug: Designed for end-to-end testing, including cloud executions, offering a more integrated and flexible testing process.

Support for Page Object Model (POM)

Page Object Model (POM) is a verified design pattern for end-to-end tests, which enables you to freely re-use steps within the tests, thus simplifying its maintenance. This pattern bases on creating group of steps that represent pages of tested Internet application as so-called Page Object. Thanks to that after you create "Log in" Page Object you can use it multiple times -- in each test that requires logging in. If the log in form changes, it suffices that you fix the test in one place -- as a consequence all tests based on "Log in" Page Object would be changed accordingly.

• Complexity and Learning Curve: Selenium, with its Page Object Model, requires a good understanding of programming concepts, making it more suitable for developers or testers with coding skills. BugBug, on the other hand, aims to simplify the test creation process, making it accessible to non-developers.
• Flexibility vs. Ease of Use: Selenium offers more flexibility due to its coding-based approach, allowing for intricate test scenarios and customizations. BugBug focuses on ease of use, with a potential trade-off in flexibility for complex scenarios.
• Maintenance and Scalability: Both approaches aim to simplify test maintenance, though through different means. Selenium's POM requires manual updates to the page objects when UI changes, while BugBug attempts to automate the adaptation to UI changes.

While Selenium's Page Object Model offers a structured, code-centric approach to test automation, emphasizing maintainability and reusability, BugBug offers a more accessible, less code-intensive approach, potentially making it easier for teams with limited coding resources to adopt and maintain automated tests. The choice between Selenium and BugBug would depend on the team's technical proficiency, specific testing requirements, and the complexity of the web application under test.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, both Selenium IDE and BugBug offer pathways to enhancing efficiency and effectiveness in web application testing. The choice between them should align with your team's specific needs, considering the ease of learning through tutorials, management of test cases and suites, responsiveness to the state of the application, and the required integration with tools like Selenium Grid. Whether prioritizing the depth and extensibility of Selenium IDE or the user-centric design and modern features of BugBug, both tools are valuable assets in the arsenal of automation testing.