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Selenium Components
The Selenium Suite
| Component | What it is | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Selenium WebDriver | a library (API) to drive browsers from code | all real automation; this course is mostly about WebDriver |
| Selenium IDE | a Chrome/Firefox extension that records and plays back clicks | quick demos, learning, bug reproduction; not for big suites |
| Selenium Grid | a server that runs tests on many machines and browsers in parallel | large regression suites, cross-browser runs (advance level) |
Selenium IDE vs WebDriver
Selenium IDE records your clicks into steps like open /login, type id=email, click id=login-btn. It is a nice start, but recorded tests break easily and cannot use loops, data files or reusable code. Companies build their suites with WebDriver + Java.
Tip: Use Selenium IDE once to see how a test is a list of steps. Then write the same steps in Java; you will do that in the Setup module.