UFT/QTP Vs Selenium : What are the differences you should know?

Finding the right automation testing tool for your project can be daunting. With so many choices available, knowing which one will best suit your needs and help you achieve desired results can be difficult. This blog post looks at two of the most common tools used in software development––UFT/QTP and Selenium––and discusses some of the key differences between them that you should consider when choosing an automation tool for your projects.

Check out the details for UFT vs Selenium below.

Why Automation?

Manual testing of any web-based application and desktop/standalone application takes time, resources, and money. Also. it is not possible to quickly test applications at any random time without any manual intervention. Automation comes into the picture here to reduce or eliminate manual testing as much as possible. We have so many tools to automate web-based and desktop applications, with Selenium and QTP being one of them. In this article, we will see a comparison between Selenium and QTP so that you can decide the choose best for your need.

UFT vs Selenium WebDriver: Core Differences

As we have seen in the basic introduction about UFT and Selenium, you must be confused about which tool is best and how you can select a tool that suits your requirements well. Don’t worry; we will compare both tools here so that it can solve your problem.

Brief History of UFT

A brief introduction to QTP

QTP stands for QuickTest Professional, which is a product of Micro Focus. It is Intelligent test automation for web, mobile, API, hybrid, RPA, and enterprise apps.  Now QTP is known as HPE UFT (Unified Functional Testing). Hence, we will be mentioning UFT instead of QTP in this post from now.

Functionalities

UFT provides functional, regression, and API test automation for software applications and environments for enterprise quality assurance. We can test all three layers of an application: the interface, the service layer, and the database layer from a single console of UFT as it provides a graphical user interface.

Automation actions can be performed by an end-user on a web-based or desktop application using UFT. We can emulate user’s actions like clicking on GUI elements of applications, entering keyboard inputs, and much more. In fact, UFT can do it much faster than human if scripted efficiently.

UFT has a long history. UFT was originally developed by Mercury Interactive in May 1998 and the first version of it was known as Astra QuickTest. Later in 2006, HP acquired Mercury Interactive, and the product was known as HP QTP. In 2011, HP merged two tools named “HP Service Test” and “HP QuickTest Professional and released the tool with a new name, HP Unified Functional Testing 11.5, made available from HP Software Division. In 2016, the entire division was sold to Micro Focus. Since then, UFT is designed, supported, and maintained by Micro Focus. The latest stable version of UFT is 14.03 as of March 2018.

Career Aspects

UFT is a more powerful tool as compared to Selenium, but because of its higher license cost, many organizations do not adopt this tool for automation. Moreover, the maximum number of tools that could be integrated with UFT are paid as well, reducing its demand and popularity.

If you are a beginner in Automation, UFT is not preferable as the chances of getting hired are less as well as you can not learn and practice it well with the limited free trial of 60 days. There are very less efficient and updated tutorials available on UFT online, making it more difficult to learn.

Selenium

Jason Huggins developed Selenium in 2004 at ThoughtWorks in Chicago. Later, it was made open source, and it has become a more powerful and popular tool for web application automation. Selenium is a suite of tools to automate web browsers which means it can be used to automate only the web-based application. More precisely, only the front end of a web application across different browsers and platforms. It can be used with various programming languages and testing frameworks.

Different tools in Selenium

Selenium consists of four tools

• Selenium IDE
• Selenium RC
• Selenium WebDriver
• Selenium Grid.

Currently, Selenium 4 is about to be launched, with an alpha version already launched as of when this article is being written.

Career Aspects

Selenium is an open-source tool that increases its popularity in organizations, mainly Service based. Its flexibility of integration with major programming languages makes it more adaptable.

Selenium has more future growth and a higher number of job openings. You can easily learn and practice as so many free online tutorials and help communities are available.

Conclusion

So we have seen so many differences between UFT and Selenium. The main driving factor is the cost of automation. If you have a project budget and can afford QTP, it is best as it provides various features. If your project has less budget, go for Selenium, but you need to put more effort.

Selenium is restricted to the browser. Suppose your test scenarios need to interact with the desktop in between, like uploading a file, downloading a file, verifying, etc. In that case, Selenium may not work properly in those scenarios, while UFT can easily automate those scenarios. Integrating Selenium with Test management tools is not easier than UFT. Selenium needs to integrate with different tools for reporting and managing data which is available by default in UFT. UFT Scripts will be more stable than Selenium. UFT is rich in features as compared to Selenium.

UFT can reduce the number of resources required as it has many readymade features available and helps to write scripts. In Selenium, you may need a few more resources and write more lines of code. But you will get less support available on online public forums on UFT, but it has proper support as it is a paid tool.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)   

1. Which is easier to learn Selenium or UFT? 

The decision of which to learn, Selenium or UFT, comes down to which type of testing you are interested in and the skills you already possess. Selenium will be the easiest route if web automation is a priority. On the other hand, if desktop or mobile application testing is more relevant to what you do, then UFT would be easier to learn for someone with existing programming skills. Both require knowledge of Java, but UFT also involves a proprietary scripting language called VBScript. Whichever tool you decide to get experience with depends on your needs as far as automated testing goes.

2. Is UFT still in demand? 

UFT (Unified Functional Testing) remains one of the most popular test automation technologies available. Many large companies use it to automate software and system tests, streamlining the development process and empowering teams to build successful products. Although UFT has been around for a while, its popularity shows no sign of waning. This is because it continues to be improved, meaning more features and better usability with each new release. It also increasingly integrates with other testing tools, giving it increased flexibility and customization options, that developers need in today's competitive markets. Overall, UFT looks poised to continue its reign as one of the industry's leading test automation solutions.

3. Does UFT require coding? 

UFT, or Unified Functional Testing, is a popular automation testing tool. It offers powerful object-based scripting capabilities that make it easy to create automated test scripts. While UFT requires minimal coding skills compared to other automation tools, knowledge of programming languages such as VBScript and JavaScript is still essential for creating automated scripts with UFT. Knowing how to write basic code helps testers extend the out-of-the-box features and customize test scenarios based on the requirements. With the right level of coding knowledge, you can easily use UFT to design efficient, comprehensive test cases that take less time and effort.

4. Which automation tool is best? 

Automation testing is a great way to streamline the testing process, but which tool should one use? UFT (Unified Functional Testing) and Selenium are two of the top contenders. UFT stands out with its simple and user-friendly interface and extensive programming capability. Selenium is a powerful tool that is hugely popular due to its open-source code, strong community support, and wide compatibility across browsers and applications. UFT and Selenium have unique strengths, depending on your testing needs: UFT for those who prefer the ease of use or Selenium for greater power and flexibility.