BrowserCat vs Selenium
BrowserCat
browsercat.com
Selenium
selenium.devSide by side
| Figure | BrowserCat | Selenium |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $50/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 1 |
| Spec score · Browser Automation Tools | 8.7 (#9) | 8.5 (#15) |
| Deployment | cloud | Grid can run in Standalone, Hub and Node, or Distributed configurations; the downloads page also links to Docker and Kubernetes deployment resources. |
| Security | Browser sessions are isolated from one another, and temporary data including downloads, cache, cookies and local storage is purged when a session ends. | The Grid guide warns that Grid must be protected from external access with appropriate firewall permissions because exposure can allow access to infrastructure, internal apps and files, or custom binary execution. |
Plans
BrowserCat
- HobbyFree
- Business$50 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
- Starter credit pack$20, paid once
- Growth credit pack$87.50, paid once
- Scale credit pack$300, paid once
- HobbyFree
In their own words
BrowserCat
BrowserCat has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Selenium
Selenium is a free suite of tools for automating web browsers, primarily to test web applications. WebDriver provides language bindings for controlling browsers locally or remotely, and is a W3C Recommendation. The main project supports.NET/C#, Ruby, Java, Python, and JavaScript. Selenium IDE is a browser add-on for recording and replaying interactions in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. For distributed tests, Selenium Grid spreads work across machines and combinations of browsers and operating systems. Grid offers Standalone, Hub and Node, and Distributed configurations; Docker and Kubernetes deployment resources are also linked. Selenium Manager can discover, download, and cache browser releases and drivers. Documentation covers browser-specific functionality for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari, and names GitHub Actions and Jenkins as CI/CD examples. Selenium began in 2004 at ThoughtWorks in Chicago. Grid has no authentication by default, and the project advises restricting external access and placing it behind a secure network. The latest Opera driver functionality is not supported, and that driver is officially unsupported. Selenium costs nothing.