Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Selenium IDE VS Cypress.io

Compare Selenium IDE VS Cypress.io and see what are their differences

Selenium IDE logo Selenium IDE

Selenium IDE is a Firefox add-on that records clicks, typing, and other actions to make a test, which you can play back in the browser.

Cypress.io logo Cypress.io

Slow, difficult and unreliable testing for anything that runs in a browser. Install Cypress in seconds and take the pain out of front-end testing.
  • Selenium IDE Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-12
  • Cypress.io Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-17

Selenium IDE features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Selenium IDE offers a user-friendly interface that allows testers to create and execute tests with minimal programming knowledge, making it accessible for beginners.
  • Quick Setup
    Getting started with Selenium IDE is straightforward and requires no complex installation processes, allowing users to quickly begin automating tests.
  • Record and Playback
    The ability to record and playback tests enables users to easily capture user interactions and replay them, reducing the time needed for manual scripting.
  • Integration
    Selenium IDE supports integration with other Selenium tools and can export tests to WebDriver scripts for more advanced testing scenarios.

Possible disadvantages of Selenium IDE

  • Limited Browser Support
    Selenium IDE primarily supports Firefox and Chrome, limiting its use in environments that require testing on other browsers.
  • Basic Functionality
    The IDE is designed for simple test cases and lacks advanced features needed for complex test scenarios, which might require transitioning to Selenium WebDriver or other tools.
  • Scalability Issues
    Projects with extensive test requirements may find Selenium IDE less scalable due to its simplistic nature and limited customization options.
  • Lack of Continuous Integration Support
    Out-of-the-box integration with CI/CD tools is limited, requiring additional setup or tools to integrate Selenium IDE tests into a continuous integration pipeline.

Cypress.io features and specs

  • Easy Setup and Configuration
    Cypress.io is known for its straightforward setup process, requiring minimal configuration to get started with writing and running tests, making it very accessible for developers new to end-to-end testing.
  • Real-time Reloads
    Cypress offers real-time reloading of tests, which improves the development experience by allowing instant feedback on test results as code changes are made.
  • Time Travel Debugging
    Cypress provides the ability to 'time travel' through tests by taking snapshots of the application state at different steps, making it easier to debug and understand failures.
  • Automatic Waiting
    Tests in Cypress automatically wait for commands and assertions, eliminating the need for manual waits and helping to avoid flaky tests due to timing issues.
  • Built-in Mocking and Stubbing
    Cypress has built-in capabilities for mocking and stubbing network requests, which simplifies testing of applications that depend on various services and APIs.
  • Rich Documentation and Community Support
    Cypress boasts comprehensive documentation and an active community, providing plenty of resources for learning and troubleshooting.
  • Cross Browser Testing
    Cypress supports testing in multiple browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, ensuring compatibility across different environments.

Possible disadvantages of Cypress.io

  • Limited Browser Support
    Although Cypress supports several major browsers, it does not support legacy browsers like Internet Explorer, which can be a disadvantage for projects that require testing across a wider range of browsers.
  • No Native Mobile App Testing
    Cypress does not natively support mobile app testing, limiting its use for projects that need end-to-end testing on mobile platforms.
  • Heavy Memory Usage
    Cypress can consume significant system resources, particularly memory, which may impact performance during large or complex test runs.
  • Limited Parallelism
    By default, Cypress's parallel execution capabilities are limited, which can slow down the test suite execution for larger projects, although this can be mitigated with the Dashboard Service (a paid feature).
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While basic tests are easy to set up, leveraging advanced features like custom commands, plugins, and complex test setups can require a steeper learning curve.
  • Incompatibility with Some Testing Ecosystems
    Cypress's architecture and testing approach can sometimes cause compatibility issues with certain testing frameworks and libraries, particularly those that are tightly coupled with traditional WebDriver-based tools.

Selenium IDE videos

Selenium IDE Tutorial For Beginners | What Is Selenium IDE? | Selenium Tutorial | Edureka

More videos:

  • Review - Let's welcome new Selenium IDE || Record and Play Tool
  • Review - What is Selenium IDE, WebDriver, Grid and RC

Cypress.io videos

Introduction to automation testing with Cypress.io (Non-selenium framework)

More videos:

  • Review - Testing Angular with Cypress.io | Joe Eames | AngularConnect 2018

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Selenium IDE and Cypress.io)
Software Development
100 100%
0% 0
Automated Testing
6 6%
94% 94
IDE
100 100%
0% 0
Browser Testing
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Selenium IDE and Cypress.io

Selenium IDE Reviews

We have no reviews of Selenium IDE yet.
Be the first one to post

Cypress.io Reviews

20 Best JavaScript Frameworks For 2023
Cypress is a holistic automation testing framework where the tester can perform unit, integration, end-to-end, and regression testing. Additionally, they may orchestrate and unify outcomes with quality measurements and useful insights that support the agile workplace by leveraging the Cypress cloud.
Top 10 Perfecto alternatives with Zebrunner on top
- is a SaaS web app for easy scaling test runs and debugging failed tests. Pairs with the open source Cypress Test Runner.
Source: zebrunner.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Cypress.io seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 27 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Selenium IDE mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Selenium IDE yet. Tracking of Selenium IDE recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Cypress.io mentions (27)

  • Ensuring Web Accessibility with Cypress: A Comprehensive Guide
    Feature: Web Accessibility Tests Feature: Web Accessibility Tests Scenario Outline: Verify all WCAG Violations Given I am on the "" page And Verify all Accessibility Violations Scenario Outline: Verify P1,P2 WCAG Violations Given I am on the "" page And Verify only P1, P2 issues Examples: | url | | https://google.com | | https://amazon.in | | https://agoda.com | |... - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Simulating Internet Outage and Recovery using Cypress
    In this blog post, we'll explore a Cypress test that replicates this scenario, utilizing the powerful intercept command to manipulate network requests and responses. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Scraping a site?
    Maybe something like Cypress is what you're looking for? Cypress.io. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • How to write tests in Django for JavaScript fetch
    You won't be able to test the javascript function itself from within python, but you can exercise the front-end code using something like cypress (https://cypress.io) or the older but still respectable selenium (https://selenium.dev). Source: about 2 years ago
  • What's your CI/CD flow made of?
    How are they run (services (ie. GitHub Action Runners, SauceLabs, Cypress.io, etc.), or self hosted autoscaling infrastructures)? Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Selenium IDE and Cypress.io, you can also consider the following products

Eclipse - Eclipse is an open source community, whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle.

Selenium - Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that.

Netbeans - NetBeans IDE 7.0. Develop desktop, mobile and web applications with Java, PHP, C/C++ and more. Runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris. NetBeans IDE is open-source and free.

Katalon - Built on the top of Selenium and Appium, Katalon Studio is a free and powerful automated testing tool for web testing, mobile testing, and API testing.

Robot framework - Robot Framework is a generic test automation framework for acceptance testing and acceptance...

Microsoft Visual Studio - Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft.