Can We Do Performance Testing by Selenium Web Driver?

There are certain technological combinations that can work wonders for a project, but, on the contrary, there will be scenarios where if the proper strategic analysis is not being done in order to measure the outcome of such combinations, then it can prove to be a real hassle. 

There are a plethora of technologies being used by organizations to carry out their software development projects seamlessly, but, what needs to be done is a thorough analysis from industry experts and subject matter experts' points of view. 

Only then can these varied technologies provide, thereby churning out results that are really beneficial. In this article, you will understand whether performance testing can be done by Selenium WebDriver or not.

What Is Performance Testing?

It is a software testing method that evaluates the stability, responsiveness, and speed of a computer, device, or software program under a specific or varying workload. Performance-related bottlenecks can be identified by conducting performance tests. There are different types of performance tests through which various possible user scenarios are simulated in order to understand the behavior of the applications.

The objective of performance testing is to evaluate data transfer velocity, processing speed, application output, command response times, workload efficiency, memory utilization, maximum concurrent users, and network bandwidth usage. It is a subset of performance engineering and is also known as “perf testing.”

What Is Selenium WebDriver?

It is a browser automation framework that can easily work with open-source APIs. This framework works by accepting commands and then sending those commands to a browser along with interacting with applications. It supports browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer and can also execute cross-browser testing based upon the requirements. Popular programming languages supported by Selenium WebDriver are Python, PHP, Perl, Ruby, C#, and Java. The Selenium testing tool has different versions like 2,3,4. Here is the latest version of selenium 4. 

Test scripts can be easily created by using WebDriver. Through this platform, a test script can be written in Linux, and then it can run on windows. 

As you have now got a brief idea about the role of performance testing and selenium WebDriver, there is one last important point that needs to be covered before moving on to the main topic and that is the four key components of WebDriver that are as follows:

1. API: It is a set of commands that are used to manipulate WebDriver.

2. Library: A code module wherein the APIs are contained and also that is necessary to implement them. They are specific to the binding of each language such as .jar files for Java, .dll files for .NET, etc.

3. Driver: The actual browser is controlled by the driver. In many scenarios, browser vendor themselves create the drivers. They are executable modules that can run on the system along with the browser, but on that system that is executing the test suite.

4. Framework: It is an additional library through which WebDriver suites get the required support. These frameworks can be test frameworks such as NUnit or JUnit. There are certain frameworks that support natural language features such as robotium or cucumber. Frameworks can also be written to carry out certain specific activities such as configuring or manipulating the system under test, data creation, etc.

Is There a Possibility of Conducting Performance Testing by Selenium WebDriver?      

Using Selenium WebDriver to conduct performance testing is considered to be a bad practice and is not advised. It is not because of the capability aspects, but, the results will be at a low level.

1. There are a lot of fragilities involved:

From the user standpoint, performance tests can seem to be ideal, but, a suite of WebDriver tests are exposed to many points of internal and external fragility, which is beyond one’s control. 

For example, the response of third-party servers that host CSS or JavaScript, speed of HTTP servers, browser startup speed, and the instrumentation penalty of the implementation of WebDriver itself. Variation at any of these points will directly cause variations in the results. It becomes really difficult to separate the difference between the performance of external resources and the performance of your website. When it comes to using WebDriver in the browser, it will be really difficult to assume what the performance penalty will be.    

2. The time factor:

The other important aspect is to save time while carrying out performance tests and functional tests at the same time. The objectives of performance and functional tests are opposed to each other. In order to test functionality, the tester has to be calm and thus wait for loading, but, this will, in turn, affect the performance testing results.

3. The significance of performance:

In order to improve the website’s performance, a tester has to analyze the overall performance, which is independent of environment differences, performance breakdown of individual resources (i.e., JavaScript or CSS), identify poor code practices in order to precisely know what needs to be improved. There are specific performance testing tools available, which can provide analysis and reporting, and can also make improvement suggestions.

4. The relevance of JMeter:      

A very limited amount of performance testing can be done by selenium WebDriver. Selenium is an open-source tool for testing web applications. When it comes to performance testing, there is a scope of limited bandwidth testing. The results are not as accurate when compared to JMeter. JMeter is an open-source performance testing tool. JMeter can be integrated with WebDriver, so that performance metrics can be collected on the browser. What we have to understand is WebDriver can be used effectively for UI functional testing. When it comes to performance testing wherein the page load time needs to be measured, a good option would be to apply timer-related methods of Java.  

To conclude, there is no doubt that performance testing can be done by Selenium WebDriver, but, it is considered to be a bad practice, which directly means it is better to avoid going for such an activity. 

Conclusion: The above-mentioned four points make us understand whether performance testing can be done by selenium web driver or not. If you are looking to conduct performance testing for your project-specific needs, then just visit online a leading software testing services company that will provide you feasible solutions in line with your project-specific needs.