Will Selenium Webdriver become less popular in coming years? [closed]

Question

Lot of Automation engineers have shifted to new Web automation tools like Cypress, WebDriverIO, Pupeeter, Playwritght, Katalon Studio, AI tools like Testium, Functionize etc and i am still working on Java and Selenium, Cucumber Framework..

Will in coming time, Selenium/java become less popular for QA engineers and all code will be moved/re-written in newer tools ?

Answer 1

Realistically if you analyse this change of inclusion of new framework & compare with older one, following points will have to be taken into consideration:

1. New frameworks like Cypress, WebDriverIO, Pupeeter, Playwritght etc:

   • Change is expected as a part of progress
   • There are some advantage in terms of speed, maintenance, enhancement in framework so they have been introduced
   • Framework selection is based on the project requirements, stack already being used & many more parameters
   • User base for javascript has been increased significantly & naturally frameworks base on javascript are getting more popularity

2. Old frameworks :

   • Since couple of decades selenium framework is there and you can see most mature too
   • Maturity comes with stability, continuous rolling out updates & support, large community support etc
   • Fact is many places selenium based automation has been already implemented using Java, Ruby, Python, C# or other language with Selenium and they will keep on using it
   • Because its not only fulfilling their requirements but to adapt and change whole automation would be time consuming process for them
   • People might be sometimes reluctant for sudden changes when it comes to cost which they have already invested and now invest more again from start for new tool/framework
   • Do not worry there will be always user base for old framework

3. Other side of the coin :

   • There are few frameworks like Robotium, Calabash was also introduced at some point of time
   • Where are they now? Does they have backed up by their own development team? Are they less successful to create large community base?
   • Those are now left behind and some stopped support too

4. From own expertise and being employable aspect :

   • Even though Robotium and Calabash are fallen behind still those requirements has been fulfilled by Appium for mobile these days (there are few more new framework but I will not go there)
   • You can sense what is still being followed:
     • Finding elements, good and efficient locator usage, interaction with them are still being use in automation which is not outdated still
     • Framework and their architecture got change and modified but its not total technology flip
     • If we could do, what we are doing with good understanding, will be ready for new framework all the time & that will keep us employable too