Selenium vs. Fitness

Question

I wonder how Selenium and Fitnesse fit into the arsenal of a software tester. Where appropriate to use these tools? Do they overlap or complement each other?

It would be great if someone could use these tools in context.

Answer 1

Selenium is a web automation system. This allows you to write code that "controls" the browser, so you can automate clicks on the site, filling out forms, etc.

FitNesse is an acceptance testing platform - it is a tool for documenting acceptance tests as verifiable code. You can run your tests and see if they pass or not.

The two are complementary - you don’t need to use Selenium with FitNesse or vice versa, but for testing websites it’s good to have your acceptance tests written in FitNesse (or similar frameworks) and have them use Selenium to control the browser.

Answer 2

Fitnesse is a testing platform that allows you to interact with code written in your chosen language through what they call Fixture.

Selenium provides you with a web browser management api for testing. Selenium provides a dll and probably a can that you can use to connect to Fitnesse through one of these lights.

Where I work, we use Fitnesse to write tests on a website that use Selenium to manage them under covers.