Selenium Alternatives: Why More Teams Are Moving to AI-First Tools
Hands up: who genuinely enjoys using Selenium?
Anyone…? We thought not…
That silence is pretty telling. Selenium is something people endure – it’s a necessary evil because a) it’s free, b) it’s got an established user base, and c) it’s become so embedded in your workflows that it might as well stay there.
We think you deserve better. There are Selenium alternatives out there that don’t extinguish a tiny piece of your soul every time you use them – and more importantly (from corporate’s perspective, at least) allow you to test far more quickly, widely, and accurately than Selenium will ever allow you to.
These tools use AI-first automation to introduce a level of testing efficiency you previously wouldn’t have thought possible. Here’s why heads of department and engineering leads are sitting up, taking note, and (finally) abandoning Selenium for something far more exciting.
Selenium is a Comfort Blanket. It’s Time to Let Go
It’s easy to stick with what you know. There’s a level of comfort that an established software tool brings to any business function, and software testing is no different. Sure, it might not be the best option out there, but your people know it and it gets the job done.
This might have been a fair point when all automation tools offered a similar set of features. Unfortunately, now that there’s a new generation of testing tools which are so much more efficient, this approach just doesn’t fly.
And, with 77% of tech businesses either actively investing, or planning to invest in AI-led QA tools, you can’t afford to sit pretty. You’ll get left behind by everyone else’s release schedules within the next half decade.
The time to act is now. The latest generation of Selenium alternatives offer the potential to completely transform your testing processes – you’ll test more and test faster, with significantly more accurate results and significantly fewer resources.
Why Selenium is Holding Your Team Back
Selenium really paved the way for automating web app testing – that’s why so many people use it. However, it often falls short on the demands set by today’s fast-paced release cycles. Here’s why.
Limited scope
By itself, Selenium has some pretty major limitations – there are no built-in reporting tools, and it struggles with visual testing. You can integrate third party tools like Appium to get round some of these issues, but this adds a level of complexity and maintenance cost that drains resources from elsewhere.
Complex and slow
Selenium’s learning curve for new users is notoriously steep – the tool isn’t that intuitive to use, and some actions, such as running tests in parallel, require a level of complexity that negates their original efficiency benefit. Tests in Selenium are also slow to execute, making it unwieldy for the quick, smaller tests you need to shift testing left and release faster.
Brittle tests, with lots of maintenance overhead
Selenium tests can flake for a variety of reasons (synchronization issues, poorly handled interaction with dynamic web elements), but one of the biggest issues is that they’re dependent on the DOM structure – so your engineers need to add hours of unwelcome test maintenance to prevent tests breaking after a UI update.
Overall, Selenium can work in fast-paced CI/CD pipelines – but you’ll need a hell of a lot of ongoing optimization for it to do so. Why not look for more efficient Selenium alternatives, then reinvest that effort into building cool new features for your product?
Alternatives to Selenium: Why the Future Is AI-First
A recent McKinsey study suggests that 92% of businesses are planning to invest more in generative AI solutions over the next three years. QA and software testing has the potential to be one of the biggest growth areas for the technology.
Previously, switching away from Selenium usually meant a sideways leap to a tool with similar features. More efficient? Possibly, but not by all that much – especially when taking into account slowdowns caused by implementing something new and learning how to use it.
Now, things are different. AI automated testing tools offer such a leap forward in test speed, coverage, and accuracy that traditional automation tools are left in the dust. Here’s how AI automation really changes the game.
No code testing
AI tools use large language models to generate test scripts from plain language. Your engineers won’t have to write a line of test code again – all they need to do is describe what they want to test, and the AI will generate the script for them.
This means that engineers can test their own code super quickly. Unit tests take just a couple of minutes, and ‘test as you go’ becomes so much more achievable as a methodology. You catch bugs earlier, when they are easier and cheaper to fix, and speed up your release cycles as a result.
Self healing tests
Most AI tools’ tests aren’t tied to the DOM. This means significantly fewer flaky tests as you don’t need to spend hours updating them after each UI change. Your engineers reinvest that time into work that adds real value, and your test results aren’t thrown by poor maintenance practices.
Seamless expanded coverage
In Selenium, you can run parallel tests and test across different browsers and devices – but the configuration takes time and effort. AI tools simulate cross browser and device testing seamlessly, with 24/7 parallel testing easy to set up out of box.
Out-of-box simplicity and easy learning curve
AI tools are all about simplicity and ease of use, with no steep learning curves and plenty of out-of-box integrations.
How easy are we talking? If you’ve ever clicked around on a website, you’ll already know how to use Momentic, more or less. One of our clients even told us that Momentic is “so easy to use that a jr dev can use on his first day!"
Has anyone ever thought anything similar about Selenium? I think we know the answer…
“The reason I was enamored by you guys was (a) work for us in prod, (b) super great UX and (c) incredible velocity and delivery. It is so easy to use that a jr dev use on his first day!”
Aditya Advani, CTO, Best Parents
AI Testing Agents: Taking AI Efficiency to the Next Level
If you think the features above are pretty nifty, wait until you hear what AI testing agents can do.
Think of AI testing agents as autonomous digital coworkers that can carry out key testing tasks by themselves, with zero need for human input. Transformational, for your release cycles, your testing processes, and your product quality? Absolutely.
AI testing agents don’t just automate more tests – they use machine learning and vast datasets to optimize your entire testing cycle. Here are five ways this is set to level up your testing processes:
- AI agents optimize your execution pathways, automatically running the tests relevant for a particular code change, saving time wasted by running unnecessary tests.
- AI agents identify likely defect areas based on previous data, so that your engineers can prioritize working on these to eliminate bugs ahead of testing.
- AI agents can generate huge sets of conversational data for training CUIs and testing responses for sentiment and intent. This makes CUIs vastly more accessible for smaller businesses without the resources for extensive manual testing.
- AI agents cut the work it takes to run development and testing concurrently, making it easier to realize the benefits of Shift Left methodology.
- AI agents can continuously monitor code post go-live using predictive analytics to accurately identify key areas for ongoing testing and monitoring.
Deloitte projects that 25% of all businesses investing in GenAI will deploy AI agents across 2025, rising to 50% in 2027.
That’s a staggering adoption rate for a technology that has only come to maturity in the past couple of years or so. Given how much AI agents could accelerate your release cycles whilst minimizing errors that slip through to production, it’s not a surprise that engineering leaders are so excited about the technology.
Momentic: Your Selenium Alternative
“Momentic makes it 3x faster for our team to write and maintain end to end tests.”
Alex Cui, CTO, GPTZero
Momentic’s AI testing tools eliminate bottlenecks, expand your test coverage, test your code faster, and allow you to test early and often. The result? Quality code with minimal bugs, shipped faster than ever before.
If, like Alex and his team, you’re keen to save over two thirds of the time you spend on key testing processes, why not schedule a conversation with our team?
