Kazeem Razaq @K.Razaq / 6:00 PM EDT. July 08, 2022.
There are many test automation frameworks available in the market, it's difficult to choose the right one for your project. Many development teams and business people have started demanding that anyone using a test automation tool ensure that the automated tests are written in a way that meets the business needs perfectly.
Test Automation is a critical part of the software development lifecycle and its never-ending process. There are many frameworks and tools which can be used to automate your tests but, not all of these frameworks are created equally. When you mention “Test Automation Frameworks” I usually hear people asking “Which one should I choose to use?” or “There are so many around but which one do you recommend?”
If you're going to automate as much of your application as possible, you're going to need a test automation framework. But which one should you use? That's what I'm going to cover in this article.
Growing as a developer is not easy. You have to constantly learn new technologies and frameworks that help you build better products. If you want to become a better programmer, then you need a strong foundation of knowledge of various tools, frameworks and techniques. We're here to help. Let's take a look at the ten most popular frameworks that every developer should know in 2022.
Testing is an essential part of every development process. While the role of a unit test is to ensure that the code in a certain module or class works as expected, it is testing's infrastructure that builds up entire test suites and automates much of this work. There are various kinds of testing frameworks available today, but not all of them are equally suited for every kind of testing situation. A good test automation framework should be extensible, maintainable, and fast to run.
Here are ten open-source test automation frameworks you should become familiar with in 2022 (or sooner!).
Every developer must know the test automation frameworks. Test automation is a process in which scripts are used to execute certain tasks, verify the outcome and check for errors. Automated tests can be used to ensure that all new changes in software code work as intended and do not break existing features. This ensures that the software doesn't regress with each release cycle or update.
1. Cucumber Framework
Cucumber is a Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) tool that allows you to write automated acceptance tests. It’s also open-source, so there are no costs involved in using it.
The Cucumber framework can be used in any programming language and works on top of the Ruby language. That means it can be used with different kinds of tools like Selenium WebDriver or Capybara Webkit Driver for testing web applications. In addition, Cucumber supports parallel execution through multiple agents which makes it possible for developers and testers alike to work together while they test their code or application functions from different angles at once!
2. RSpec Framework
RSpec is a testing framework for Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD). It is also a Ruby testing framework for Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD). RSpec was developed by the folks at ThoughtWorks to help developers write better tests while keeping their tests readable and maintainable. The goal of RSpec is to make writing and maintaining your code easier through its DSL which allows you to specify your expectations in plain English instead of having them written in an object-oriented language such as Ruby or Java.
3. Selenium WebDriver Framework
Selenium WebDriver is a tool for automating web browsers. It is a browser automation framework that can be used for testing web applications, websites and individual web pages.
It allows you to programmatically drive and control the behaviour of your browser using a simple programming model. This makes it ideal for use with automated test frameworks like TestNG or JUnit4.
4. Robot Framework
Robot Framework is a test automation framework that is used to create test automation scripts for web applications, desktop applications and mobile applications. It is an open source framework, which is easy to use and supports many programming languages.
Robot Framework was initially developed by ThoughtWorks in 2003 as a single-page application framework for building rich Internet application prototypes using JavaScript and HTML5 technologies. The tool has been widely adopted by developers across the world because it makes developing automated tests very easy by providing an intuitive interface that allows you to write code in any language you want without having any knowledge about the underlying technology behind it!
5. Watir WebDriver Framework
Watir is a Ruby library that can be used to automate web browsers. It has been used to automate many web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome (and Safari) along with many other software platforms such as Eclipse PDT or Visual Studio Code.
The main advantage of using the Watir WebDriver Framework is its simplicity: it requires only one file named Watir-webdriver-server. RB in order for your application code to communicate with the browser through HTTP requests and responses.
The server-side code consists of three modules: WebDriverServer, WebDriverAgent and Selenium.
6. Watir-webdriver
Watir-web driver is a tool that is used to automate web browsers. It's a Ruby library that can be used for testing websites, applications and APIs.
This framework allows you to simulate user interactions with your website's pages by modifying their DOM elements using JavaScript and CSS selectors. This gives you the ability to check whether all the functionalities of your site are working as per expectations or not while verifying if they respond correctly when certain events occur on them (e.g., clicking buttons).
7. Watir-Classic
Watir is a testing framework for web applications. It's also a Ruby library, and it works with your existing test suite to make sure that you always have a reliable, repeatable way of testing your code.
The Watir-Classic framework lets you automate browser interactions and add assertions to your tests so that they can be monitored by the developer or automated by an auditor who runs them over time. This means that all developers on your team have access to this toolset without having any knowledge about how it works; they just need to know which version of Ruby their tests run against (1, 2) or whether they've upgraded from 1st release (no).
8. Mocha.js
Mocha.js is a javascript testing framework for node.js and the browser. It supports TDD, BDD, mocking, and profiling. Mocha is easy to install and get started with—you’ll be writing tests within minutes of installing it!
Mocha has been around since 2010 (it was originally called “Chai”), but it’s still one of the most popular frameworks out there today because it's so flexible and powerful at doing exactly what you need it to do: test your code in Node/Javascript environments using Jasmine as its API - which means that if you want something more than just ECMAScript 5 compliance then this will be right up your alley!
9. Protractor Framework
Protractor is a JavaScript framework for end-to-end web application testing. It allows you to use Selenium WebDriver to control the browser while keeping your tests in the same codebase as your actual websites and not having to create separate test suites for each one. This makes it easier for developers to maintain their code because they don't have to worry about maintaining multiple sets of tests or creating new ones when there are changes made by other team members.
Protractor uses NodeJS as its underlying engine and uses Selenium WebDriver as its backend toolset (which means it's compatible with most browsers).
Mocha with Chai Assertion Library and jsdom Browser Environment.
Mocha with Chai Assertion Library and jsdom Browser Environment
Mocha is a JavaScript test framework that uses the Chai BDD/TDD assertion library. The jsdom library allows you to write tests in pure JavaScript, but it also provides an alternative implementation of the DOM API so that you can use it to simulate any browser environment.
The most popular test automation frameworks: Cucumber, RSpec, RobotFramework etc
There are many test automation frameworks out there, but these three are some of the most popular and widely used:
Cucumber. The classic, open-source testing framework for BDD (a type of functional testing). It’s designed to be easy to use and supports both browser automation as well as Selenium WebDriver (for headless testing).
RSpec. A powerful Behavior Driven Development framework that uses expectations and assertions to describe your code so you can write tests in English without having any knowledge about how the program actually works under the hood (i.e., how it receives input from users or performs calculations). It also has a plugin system where you can add new features or fix bugs using custom plugins called “spikes."
All of the frameworks mentioned above are great for creating test automation scripts using their own methods. If you’re looking to start with a framework, then I would recommend starting with Cucumber Framework, which is easy and simple to use.
Test automation is undeniably the future of application quality management. It reduces time and cost while improving quality by simplifying complicated processes. It is an integral part of tests, breaks down the complexity of testing, provides better end-to-end testing and promotes continuous integration.
In the end, automation frameworks have some unique advantages over manual QA testing. But, that doesn't mean manual testing will fail to accomplish its goals in a DevOps environment. Automation frameworks have their place in development just as much as they do in QA. Given the trends in software development and the DevOps world, these tools are sure to be utilised more and more in the coming years.
If you will like to learn more about automation framework and software testing in general, BusyQA’s top-of-the-line courses will help you achieve success. Our courses are taught by the best instructors and each of Canada’s top 100 companies have hired our graduates - you could be next! Click here to see our course schedule.
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