Mabl vs Selenium | Comparison & Which One to Choose?

Testing is a crucial part of the Software Development Life Cycle. Manual testing can lower the speed of delivery as it requires a lot of manual resources to test. Automation testing can help to speed up the testing process and accelerate the delivery of software products. Automation testing has its challenges such as setting up a framework, building custom libraries, integrating various tools into the automation framework, etc. To overcome such challenges low-code automation tools are getting popular. Selenium is the most popular code-based automation tool. Mabl is a no-code automation tool that provides many complex features in-built and allows testers to automate test cases without prior coding knowledge. However, you may not find all the features that you are looking for in Mabl or Selenium, in such cases you can explore popular alternatives to these. One of the most popular tools is Testsigma. Let’s compare Mabl vs Selenium and also explore it’s alternatives.

Mabl vs Selenium: Overview

Mabl and Selenium both are popular in their own space, Selenium is popular in code-based automation tools. On the other hand, Mabl is popular because of its low code, AI-driven feature. 

What is Mabl?

Mabl is a unified testing platform developed by the Mabl Inc. headquarters in Boston, United States. Mabl is a commercial tool, which means it’s a free tool. But Mabl provides many unique features which can reduce a lot of cost to the organization. Low code automation, support for web apps, and mobile apps, performance testing, API testing, accessibility testing, cloud-based features, and integration with many tools are some of its notable features.

What is Selenium?

Selenium is an open-source test automation framework, initially released in 2004. Even today, it has a large market share due to its extensibility and many user-friendly features. Selenium supports web application testing on multiple platforms such as macOS, Windows, and Linux. It also provides the option to choose programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, C#, Python, Ruby, and PHP. Tests can be executed on Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari browsers easily.

What is Testsigma?

Testsigma is an AI powered no-code automation tool. Testsigma doesn’t demand prior experience in coding, it comes with many modern capabilities such as API Testing, End-to-End Testing, data driven testing, visual regression testing. Interestingly, all these can be done without writing a code. Programming language or coding is no longer a barrier with Testsigma. Testsigma is known for its simplicity, rich user interface and customization.

Why Compare Selenium Vs Mabl?

Selenium framework follows a complex installation and set-up process. Other than browser simulation API commands Selenium doesn’t provide anything else. A complete automation framework requires a lot more than the browser simulation libraries such as assertion capabilities, reporters, utility libraries, file-based libraries, and integration to CI/CD pipelines, etc. Building such a framework is complicated, but Mabl can make all challenging tasks easier by providing the low code feature. As it provides many features as visual options it helps non-programmers to adapt the tool easily. One of the major factors that will impact the Mabl and Selenium is cost and licensing. Selenium is an open-source tool with no cost involved. Mabl is a commercial tool that requires a license to use. This means that organizations need to invest in the tool. Unless you compare these tools you will not be able to decide on Mabl or Selenium. Sometimes both Mabl and Selenium may not fulfil your requirements. In such cases you should not make a compromise with limitations of such tools. The better approach is to evaluate a popular tool such as Testsigma. As Testsigma is an all-in-one testing tool, many organizations found that it is more relevant to modern testing. 

Mabl and Selenium – Similarities

Mabl and Selenium both are targeting to solve the same problem in different ways. They are built to achieve automation coverage as much as possible. There are many similarities between them. Below are the key similarities between the Mabl and Selenium.

• Mabl and Selenium can be used for functional testing
• Both of them support cross-browser testing such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari
• They can be configured to support accessibility testing
• Both can be extended to support Mobile Application Testing 
• They can be integrated with CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, GitLab,  Bitbucket, AzureDevOps, etc
• They support cloud-based testing feature
• Both can be configured for data-driven testing
• They can be integrated with Defect management tools like Jira
• Both of the tools provide a good level of debugging capabilities

Mabl vs Selenium: Comparison Table

Mabl vs Selenium side-by-side comparison helps to understand the features quickly and easily. Importantly it helps to gauge the tool.

Features	Mabl	Selenium
License	Mabl commercial license	Apache 2.0
Cost	Not disclosed/ Not free	Free
Support for low-code automation	Yes, In-built support	Supports record and playback via Selenium IDE
Supports Functional testing	Yes	Yes
Supports Mobile Testing	Yes	Yes with Appium Integration
Reporters	Yes, Reporters are in-built	No in-built reporting. Supports via third-party library integration
API Testing support	Yes, API testing is supported out of the box	No in-built support for API Testing
Cross Browser testing support	Supports Chrome, Firefox, and Webkit Safari	Supports Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari
Supported desktop operating system	Windows	Windows, macOS
Programming language support	Advanced scripting allows Javascript programming language	Java, JavaScript, C#, Python, Ruby, PHP
Performance Testing support	Yes, Performance testing is out of the box	No support for performance testing
Accessibility Testing	Yes, Accessibility Testing is out of the box	Supported via third-party libraries. Requires technical knowledge to integrate
Cloud execution support	Yes, In-built support	No, Only cloud testing tools integration is supported
Pros	Low code support API Testing support Cross-browser support  Easy to test mobile apps Accessibility testing support Performance testing support In-built cloud testing  Advanced scripting feature for complex scenarios In-built reporters Dedicated technical support Third-party tool integration support	Open source and FreeCross-platform support Cross-browser support Multiple programming language support  CI/CD Integration support Good documentation Good community support Highly customizable
Cons	Commercial tool and not free to use Doesn’t support Safari only open source version web kit is supported Limited customization feature Difficult to execute the test on the local machine Limited third-party tool support Difficult to handle edge case scenarios	Complex to set up the tool Good technical knowledge is required to integrate with third-party toolsReporters are not in-built One needs to configure manually all required logs for debugging Capturing execution videos is trickier Difficult to perform API and Accessibility tests
Integrations	CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, Gitlab, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, Octopus, etc.Defect Tracking tools such as JiraCommunication tools like Slack and MS TeamsVersioning tools like Bitbucket and GitHub	CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, Gitlab, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, Octopus, etc.Defect Tracking tools such as Jira, qTest, TestLink, etc Versioning tools like Bitbucket and GitHubIt can also be integrated with Docker, Kubernetes, etc. Supports cloud-based testing providers Browser Stack, SauceLabs, LambdaTest, Applitools etc.
Customers	Booking.com, NTT, Microsoft, HyCite, Panasonic, Roche, Hitachi, Genero, JetBlue, WeFi, Bath & Body Works etc	SEO, Infosys, HTS Inc. Consultants, Fujitsu Ltd, Acrelec etc.(data as per enlyft.com)
Market share	0.43% as per 6sense.com	30.68% as per 6sense.com

As you can see from the above table both Mabl and Selenium have many limitations, such as Mabl doesn’t support Safari, limited customization, limited third party tools etc. When it comes to Selenium it requires good technical knowledge to set up and use the framework. Fortunately, you can overcome these challenges with ease by choosing Testsigma. 

Testsigma is a modern automation tool, it is built for modern application testing. It supports many features that other automation frameworks. You can consider evaluating Testsigma before making any decision on an automation tool to project.

Mabl Vs Selenium -Limitations

Mabl and Selenium both are widely used.  Mabl uses the Playwright automation tool in the back. However, it removes all the complexity involved in the Playwright and shipped as a low code feature. Selenium is a pure code-based test automation tool, It doesn’t use any wrapper or integration. Below are key limitations of Mabl and Selenium

Limitations of Mabl

• Mabl is a commercial tool and it’s not free to use
• The pricing option is not disclosed on the web.
• Difficult to gauge the tool at the POC phase as documentation is not accessible to the public
• Users have opinionated that UI elements are unidentifiable at times 
• Very limited customization feature
• It doesn’t support macOS 
• It doesn’t support the official Safari browser, only the open-source version of Safari Webkit is Supported
• Difficult to automate the edge case scenarios

Limitations of Selenium

• Very good technical knowledge required
• No in-built integration to reporters and other tools
• Difficult to perform non-UI testing
• Doesn’t support low code automation
• No support for performance testing
• No dedicated technical support. Only community support is available.

Alternative Tools to Overcome Limitations of Mabl and Selenium

In the previous section, we have discussed a lot about Mabl and Selenium. There are many challenges in both Selenium and Mabl tools. Sometimes limitations may block your requirements and can pause the feature testing. It is important to ensure all required features are available before choosing the right tool. If there are any limitations or doesn’t meet your requirement then you need to look for alternative tools. In automation choosing the right tool is crucial, because once you choose it is very difficult to migrate tests into another tool. Furthermore, it takes a lot of time and effort while migrating. Testsigma is the best alternative to Mabl and Selenium. 

Testsigma is an AI-based no-code tool that supports many different types of testing such as end-to-end testing, API testing, and visual regression testing. It has a cloud testing feature out of the box. It also supports macOS and Windows operating systems which are lacking by many no code automation tools. It has a good level of reporting and produces meaningful logs with screenshots and videos to help in debugging. It also uses the AI-based feature to reduce maintenance. Using Testsigma you can test your desktop application, and mobile applications seamlessly across 3000+ real device and browser combinations. Additionally, if you have purchased a cloud testing platform subscription such as BrowserStack or SauceLabs you can easily integrate them and execute the test.

Testsigma vs Mabl and Selenium – Which One to Choose?

Selenium offers a good level of customization features, suitable for people who have very good technical knowledge and are ready to take the heavy maintenance. It can be customized to any extent, even if you can build a framework organization level of customization. As it is an open-source framework you will find a lot of good third-party libraries to integrate them. Selenium with third-party integration can do more than just automation. However to perform any integration or to build the Selenium framework you need to have a deep level of understanding of programming knowledge

Mabl is a good tool for those who don’t have much technical knowledge. It offers many different types of testing in a unified platform. It also offers advanced automation features using the Javascript snippet. However, it limits the customization. As we discussed earlier it has many drawbacks such as macOS support, difficulty in identifying the element in some scenarios, etc. Integration with third-party tools is limited. 

Testsigma offers a lot of flexibility, with minimal limitations. It is also an AI-based automation tool. It can provide all required types of testing under a single umbrella. As mentioned earlier it also supports cloud testing tools integrations out of the box which other tools in the similar segment lack. Overall Testsigma can be considered a one-stop solution for testing.

Nevertheless, the best tool can be decided only after carefully analyzing the organization’s requirements, current scope, future roadmap, skillset that the organization has, budget, etc.

Conclusion

Test automation is crucial nowadays, as manual testing takes a longer time to execute, and it can slow the delivery. Automation testing speeds up the delivery but you need to have the required infrastructure and good planning to execute. Choosing the right automation testing tool is important as migrating to another tool can be time-consuming and complex. Code-based automation tools like Selenium demand more technical knowledge but offer great customization. No-code-based testing tools like Mabl and Testsigma can help to save a lot of cost in the test design phase though you spend on the license of these tools. Testsigma is built by considering the future of web applications and modern test automation demands, it serves as a stop solution for all your testing needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Mabl use Selenium?

Mabl doesn’t use Selenium, It uses the Playwright in the backend. Playwright is a modern open-source test automation tool sponsored by Microsoft. However, by using Mabl you will not feel the flavor of Playwright as all complex logic is hidden in the backend and Mabl provides all features with visual interface or low-code.

Does Selenium support real device testing?

Selenium is a web-based testing tool that supports the automation of desktop web applications. It can be extended to support the testing of mobile applications using Appium. When it comes to real device testing, it is possible to perform real device testing, but it cannot provide you with the required infrastructure which is the most complex part of real device testing.

Does Mabl support visual regression testing?

Mabl supports Visual regression testing also known as Visual Application Testing. It can compare two images and provide you with a side-by-side comparison of changed elements. A similar feature is also provided by Testsigma.