Answers from testers who’ve been there.
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13 threads
Selenium vs Playwright for a complete beginner in 2026?
I'm switching from manual QA into automation. I've been doing manual testing for 3 years and I know Java a bit, some Python. Every tutorial I open is either "Selenium is the indust…
Should we switch our team from Selenium to Playwright?
~1400 Selenium (Java + TestNG) UI tests, 4 QA engineers, 3 years of investment. Suite takes 90 minutes on Selenium Grid and flakes at ~4% per run. Leadership just asked "should we…
How do I actually fix flaky Selenium tests without rewriting everything?
Inherited a Selenium + Java + TestNG suite. ~600 tests, roughly 8% flake rate. Rewriting in Playwright isn't on the table this quarter. Every "fix flaky tests" article says "use ex…
What's a locator strategy that actually stays stable across UI refactors?
Devs refactor our React app roughly monthly. Every refactor breaks 20–30 tests because someone renamed a class or restructured a component. We've tried: - CSS selectors → break on…
What are companies actually asking in SDET interviews right now?
Interviewing for SDET roles at 4 companies (2 fintech, 1 SaaS, 1 e-commerce). Prep resources online feel dated — half of them are still asking about Selenium XPath tricks. For folk…
When should we NOT automate a test in our regression suite?
Leadership pushed a "100% automated regression" mandate. I've been in QA long enough to know that's usually a bad idea, but I need a concrete list of "don't automate this" cases to…
Can AI actually replace QA automation engineers?
Every vendor is pitching "AI-powered testing". My CTO forwarded me one of these pitches with the note "why do we need a QA team then?". I want to give an honest answer — where AI a…
Which Selenium locator strategy is most reliable?
id vs css vs xpath vs data-testid — team keeps arguing. What actually holds up on a modern SPA?
How do I spin up a full test environment with docker-compose?
Need app + Postgres + Selenium Grid for E2E on CI. What does a clean compose look like?
Selenium: implicit wait vs explicit wait — when to use each?
Docs warn against mixing them. Why? And what do you actually run in prod?
What is Selenium WebDriver and how is it different from Selenium IDE?
Interviewer asked me this and I fumbled. Looking for the crisp 2026 answer.
Playwright vs Selenium in 2026 — which should a new team pick?
We are greenfield, TypeScript stack, ~20 engineers. Everyone keeps asking "why not Selenium, it is battle tested." What is the honest 2026 answer?
Selenium Grid 4: how do you enable video recording per session?
Migrating from Zalenium to Selenium 4 Grid. We need MP4 per session for failure triage. Docs mention a video image but concrete docker-compose is thin. Looking for a working exampl…