Detox vs Selenium

Detox is an open-source framework for end-to-end testing of React Native mobile apps. It runs tests on real devices or simulators and simulates user interactions, with JavaScript tests for iOS and Android. Its gray-box method accesses app internals, while monitoring asynchronous app activity to reduce flaky tests. An async-await API supports breakpoints in asynchronous tests. Teams can use Detox APIs with any test runner or independently; Jest integration is included. The project describes it as suitable for CI and documents CI workflows. Detox is free under the MIT License, supports self-hosted runners and visual testing, and is listed for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows. React Native v0.77.x through v0.84.x is fully compatible with the New Architecture; later versions may work but are not thoroughly tested. Expo integration is community-driven and not maintained by the Detox team. Non-React Native Android apps are not supported. iOS simulator setup requires applesimutils, which the setup guide says is for macOS only.

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.