When comparing Selenium vs Ghostlab, the Slant community recommends Ghostlab for most people. In the question“What are the best multi-browser testing tools with synchronized interactions?” Ghostlab is ranked 2nd while Selenium is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Ghostlab is:
Doesn't need any additional software or browser extensions to be installed on any device. If every device is pointed to the IP address that it provides it will automatically reload that page on every file change.
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Pros
Pro Actively supported
The open source community behind Selenium has a very large & engaged developer base. This ensures a stable support channel for the tool. In addition, various companies also provide support for Selenium. This active and multi-channel support provides a much more lucrative option for developers looking to implement Selenium in their workflow.
Pro Cross-browser
Supports many browsers and a solid platform for adding future browsers to selenium (WebDriver)
Pro Cross-platform
Selenium is based on Java and can be run on Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, etc.
Pro Ability to imitate a real user using the application
Testing is analogous to a human being using the web application which is not possible with a solution which runs headless and claims to run faster than Selenium.
Pro Integrates with any CI tool
Selenium, with its ability to interact with different testing frameworks, like NUnit or xUnit, makes it easy to get Selenium working with practically any Continuous Integration services.
Pro Uses an approved WC3 standard - WebDriver
The WebDriver protocol is standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium which makes it easy for third-parties to get involved and contribute to Selenium.
WebDriver has been the foundation of many additional automation projects besides core selenium and has become the de-facto standard for UI automation.
Pro You can use the same IDE you use for coding to debug
Pro Integrates well with existing testing frameworks
Pro Support for many languages
Selenium supports a variety of languages including Java, Python, PHP, C#, Ruby and JavaScript ensuring that the tool is easily accessible to a wide variety of developers.
Pro Use the very minimum amount of code required to run
Selenium tries to inject into the page only the bare minimum of code needed to run the tests.
Pro Easy to set preconditions for the tests
Pro Can be used without additional software on any browser
Doesn't need any additional software or browser extensions to be installed on any device. If every device is pointed to the IP address that it provides it will automatically reload that page on every file change.
Pro Testing page preset with a lot of useful information
Ghostlab offers a testing page which when opened displays a lot of useful information. Such as, but not limited to: viewport width and height, user agent string, pixel ratio etc...
Pro Synchronizes scrolls, clicks, reloads and form input across all connected clients
Every time the page is reloaded on a device, it's automatically reloaded on every other device connected. It also registers scrolls, form inputs and clicks across different devices and automatically synchronizes them to each connected device.
Pro Cross-browser and cross-device live reloading
Ghostlab offers developers the opportunity to test their site in multiple browsers and devices at the same time. Once the Ghostlab server is deployed, it offers an IP address running on port 8080 which automatically reloads on every file change.
Pro Easy setup
Setting up GhostLab is very easy, by simply dragging a URL or a local folder it creates automatically a new site entry and is ready to work.
It can then be named or choose the specified file extensions that need to be watched.
Pro Remote inspection of code on different devices.
Ghostlab utilizes weinre, an open-source remote debugger to remotely inspect the code on different devices. By double clicking the device name that needs to be inspected, and clicking the 'Debug' button, Ghostlab opens a Chrome inspector which can inspect any item in the page of the device and manipulate the CSS and HTML.
Cons
Con Requires installation of drivers
Con The IDE for recording isn't too powerful
Con Issues with locators
Locators that support common attributes like: name
, id
, XPATH
, javascriptDOM
, etc. have to be found through firebugs.
Con No Linux version
Ghostlab is available only for Windows and Mac, there is no Linux version. At least for the time being.
Con Not free
Ghostlab is proprietary and not free. It costs $49. Though there is a free 7-days trial.