Selenium is an open-source tool that’s used for automation of the tests distributed on web browsers (web applications are tested using any web browser).
What are the benefits of Selenium?
Since Selenium is open-source, there’s no licensing cost involved, which may be a major advantage over other testing tools. Other reasons behind Selenium’s ever-growing popularity are;
● Tests scripts are written in any of those programming languages: Java, Python, C#, PHP, Ruby, Perl & .Net Tests will be distribution
● Tests will be carried out in any of those OS: Windows, Mac or Linux
● Tests are often administered using any browser: Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, GoogleChrome, Safari or Opera
● It is integrated with tools like TestNG & JUnit for managing test cases and generating reports
● It is often integrated with Maven, Jenkins & Docker to attain Continuous Testing
Shortcomings of Selenium
We can use Selenium only to check a web application. We can’t test desktop applications or the other software
There is no guaranteed support available for Selenium. We’d like to leverage the available customer communities.
It is unimaginable to perform testing on images. We want to integrate Selenium with Sikuli for image-based testing
There is no native reporting facility. But we are able to overcome that issue by integrating it with frameworks like TestNG or JUnit.
Need for Software Testing Certification
Software testing is where it all comes down to. Today’s world of technology is dominated by machines, and their behaviour is controlled by the software powering it.
At the top of the day, it is the software application’s success rate which goes to regulate your business growth. The identical thing will be said even for web applications because most businesses today are completely reliant on the web.
Take, for example, any e-commerce company. Be it Amazon or E-bay or Flipkart, they depend on the customer traffic on their internet sites and traffic on their web-based mobile applications for business. A small bug in the code could cause all the prices of a variety of products to be capped off at 10% of the original price, which was not the intention in the first place. Software testing falls under two main categories; manual testing and automation testing. Selenium was created as an automation tool to overcome the limitations of manual testing.
How to get Selenium certification?
Selenium is an open-source tool; hence there is no authorised body through which may provide an authorised certification on Selenium. However, there lies certain private bodies and private organisations who have created their version of Selenium certification, whose aid can be used.
If within the Indian subcontinent; Vskills is one of Indians largest professional certification body, they supply government software certification course online for working professionals. They supply certifications on different topics, Selenium being one of them; it’s a very basic and general certification
Similarly, there are other organisations on the internet that are available and offer Selenium certification, keeping in mind that there are no authorised bodies or organisations that offer Selenium certifications since it is open-source.
Certifications are effective; they can be used as a source of keeping your knowledge in check, to learn more skills and for future employment. However, they should not be looked as a proof for your knowledge
Do we need to do Selenium certification?
Selenium is an open-source tool; Selenium certification is valued in the market at a significantly high price point, which is by its nature a sort of a scam. There is no need to do any sort of Selenium certification as it could be considered as a violation of the open-source community. If the aim for considering Selenium certification is for leaning, then you can also learn through training, through resources, through blogging, from Selenium HQ, that is, directly from the Selenium website and their libraries, you can also learn from a good trainer, blogs and/or YouTube. However, through Selenium certification, you are not certified as a Selenium guy; this implies that all the available certifications in the market for Selenium is not valid and do not carry any significance in the market.
As tweeted out in 2018, by one of the co-creators, of Selenium 2.0, Simon Mavi Stewart,’ of course, there is no endorsed #selenium certification, and the position is that anyone offering “selenium certification” is selling snake oil and attempting to take advantage of people. Training is great. Certification? Abusive’
Certifications which are available in the market consist mainly of topics that fall under theory of certification, they consist of objective and subjective based questions, along with other very basic things. Certain training institutes, go as far offering the certificate within half an hour, on payment of extra cash, however irrespective of where you get your certification from, the value of it remains redundant.
Instead of running behind the certification, spend your time, money and efforts on learning Selenium, the new features available on Selenium, on how one can improve their Selenium knowledge, learning about the programming, about new tools and technologies, about Selenium related tools that available in the market, and on expanding your knowledge on software’s and automation programs, choose to spend your efforts rather on software testing courses online and the training that is available in the market.
What kind of certification do we need?
From the certification point of view, it is not mandatory everywhere, however, if you are planning to go to a country like Australia, New Zealand, Canada or the USA, these countries usually enquire what kind of certification you have. In such a case, ISTQB, which is a certified organisation, this is for manual function testing point of view, and not for automation, however, as mentioned before, in India, this certificate has no value. The kind of certification you have does not matter, rather it is your knowledge that matters, with respect to manual testing. If the certification is something that you want to showcase in your resume, and then it is a service which you can avail, keeping in mind that in India this certification carries no value. Similarly, another certification offered with respect to manual testing or automation is not valid.
