Selecting the Best Automated Testing Framework for a Complex Web Application

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#1

Hello Everyone :hugs:,

I’m currently working on a large-scale web application with a variety of functionalities and numerous integrations with third-party APIs. Our team is now considering implementing automated testing to improve our release cycles and reduce regression issues. However, given the complexity of our application, I’m a bit overwhelmed with the different tools and frameworks available. I’d appreciate any insights or advice from those of you who have experience with automated testing in similar environments.

Here’s some context on our project setup and requirements:

  • Tech Stack: The app is built with React on the front end and Node.js on the back end, with MongoDB as the primary database. We also use GraphQL extensively.
  • Testing Needs: We need robust end-to-end testing for user workflows and integration testing to ensure our API connections and data flows remain intact.
  • Team Expertise: Our team has some experience with unit testing (primarily Jest and Mocha), but we’re relatively new to full-scale automated testing. We’re willing to learn but prefer something with a manageable learning curve.
  • CI/CD Integration: We’re using Jenkins for continuous integration, so the solution we choose needs to integrate smoothly into our pipeline.

Currently, I’m considering tools like Cypress, Selenium, and Playwright. Each seems to have its pros and cons: Cypress offers fast execution but has some limitations with multi-tab workflows, Selenium seems versatile but a bit more complex, and Playwright appears promising, though we haven’t had much exposure to it.

Has anyone here used these or other tools in similar scenarios? I’d love to hear about your experiences, especially around setup time, maintainability, and mendix test execution speed. Any best practices or pitfalls to avoid would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance for your help!

#2
  1. I don’t recommend using JS for complex projects:
    a). It’s slow and does not allow normal multi-threading. This will lead to issues when you have a lot of tests to run simultaneously.
    b). JS does not have types to declare thus the code is poorly readable.
    c). My recommendation here is to use Java or Python. Maybe Groovy. But not JS. Forget that.
  2. Regarding frameworks:
    a). You have to use both API & UI interactions in the test; don’t start all your tests with login from UI, do as much as possible with API and then go to the page under test directly. This will make your tests much faster and reliable.
    b). API framework depends on your language selection;
    c). For UI framework I recommend Playwright if you don’t have issues with your app (for example, your app is running on IE only).