What sets apart running Protractor with Selenium compared to running Protractor without Selenium?

After referring to the protractor resource on Github, I discovered that there is an option to execute Protractor tests without utilizing Selenium server by setting directConnect: true.

What sets apart running Protractor tests with a Selenium server compared to without one, besides the limitation of only supporting Chrome and Firefox in the latter scenario?

Answer №1

At this moment, there are currently 5 different built-in options for connecting to browser drivers:

  1. You can specify seleniumServerJar to start the selenium standalone server locally.
  2. Specify seleniumAddress to connect to a running selenium server (local or remote).
  3. Set sauceUser and sauceKey to connect to Sauce Labs' remote selenium server.
  4. Set browserstackUser and browserstackKey to use remote Selenium Servers via BrowserStack.
  5. Use directConnect to connect directly to Chrome or Firefox, with additional settings like chromeDriver and firefoxPath available for custom configurations.

The first 4 options primarily involve using a "proxy," which is a selenium server:

This server acts as a bridge between your test script (written with the WebDriver API) and the browser driver (controlled by the WebDriver protocols). It forwards commands from your script to the driver and returns responses from the driver to your script.

One main advantage of automating browsers through a selenium server, especially if it functions as a Selenium Grid, is the ability to scale tests across multiple browsers and systems - like in Sauce Labs Selenium Grid. Additionally, services like BrowserStack offer similar capabilities along with various configurations for testing on different browsers and systems.

Another scenario where starting a selenium server (as in option 2) is beneficial compared to using directConnect is when you require specific machine configurations for testing. For example, if you have Windows with IE 11 and Ubuntu with Firefox 35, configuring these machines as selenium nodes connected to a selenium server/hub would be ideal.

If running tests locally targeting Chrome and/or Firefox, opting for directConnect will result in faster test execution. However, for testing on IE, Safari, or other non-direct connect compatible browsers, options 1-4 (usually 1) should be chosen.

Refer to the following topics for more information:

  • Differences between 'Selenium-server-standalone.jar' and 'Selenium Client & WebDriver'
  • Difference between "selenium server" and "selenium server standalone" jars

Answer №2

Put simply, if directConnect is set to true, the tests will be executed without relying on a selenium server. A selenium server setup is akin to Selenium Grid (comprising of Hub and node). Using Selenium Server allows for running tests either on a remote machine or your local machine, with the added benefit of distributing execution workload across different nodes. Furthermore, it enables simultaneous testing on multiple browsers.

In contrast, when directConnect is false, the tests will only run on your local FireFox and Chrome installations. This means that the tests will execute on the same machine where the test codebase is stored.

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