Top 9 Web Automation Frameworks for JavaScript in 2022

Top 9 Web Automation Frameworks for JavaScript in 2022

This is an era of automation and we all are aware of that. Whether it be a small-scale industry or a large multinational company, everyone is moving towards automation.

With the increase in the demand for web automation, JavaScript frameworks have also emerged. The reason is simple. Different frameworks can be used to accomplish different needs. Some of them can be used for unit testing, while others can be used for end-to-end testing.

In this article, we are going to discuss with you the top 9 web automation frameworks for JavaScript in 2022. But before starting I would like to introduce you to a platform that I personally felt has reduced my efforts. It is called LambdaTest for performing JavaScript Automation Testing which you can use to run your JavaScript Test.

LambdaTest provides :

  • Parallel Testing will accelerate the speed of your test.
  • Perform testing more often using this tool.
  • Run test scripts on over 3000+ devices and browsers.
  • Debug at the early stage.
  • With the SOC2 Type 2 certified and GDPR compliant, you need not worry about your security with LambdaTest.

Now let us get back to our web automation frameworks. I have categorized them into Front-end, Back-end, Mobile/Desktop based, and Testing frameworks.

Front-end Frameworks

1. Svelte

Svelte is an open-source front-end JavaScript framework. It was developed by Rich Harris and is maintained by Svelte core team members.

It has been ranked as the number one front-end framework of the year 2020 by Stat.js. With features such as no virtual DOM, less code, and truly reactive, users can create interactive web pages using Svelte.

The popularity of this framework can be calculated based on its GitHub records. It has 2.8k forks, 56.5k stars, and dedicated contributors of over 800.

What makes Svelte different from other frameworks?

Here are some of the extraordinary features that Svelte offers:

  1. Unlike React or Vue, Svelte does not perform its task on the browser. When you build your app, it shifts your work into compiler steps. There are no virtual DOMS.
  1. With the “less code” feature, you just need to write fewer lines of code. This will save your time, effort, will reduce bugs, and increase the readability of the code.
  1. Svelte has incorporated reactivity into its language so that users can avoid those complex state management libraries.

Where does Svelte need improvement?

Svelte was launched in the year 2016. Considering the young age of the framework, there is no major IT company that supports Svelte. For instance, React is backed by Facebook, and Vue JS is supported by Google.

Companies using Svelte

2. React

In the same survey as we have seen above, React.js has been ranked the 2nd top front-end framework.

React is an open-source JavaScript library used to build a user interface using the component structure. It can be used for developing single-page, mobile, and server-rendering components with frameworks like Next.js.

React is maintained by Facebook (or Meta). It has over 184K stars, 37.7k forks, and more than 1500 contributors on GitHub.

What makes React different from other frameworks?

Here are some features of React:

  1. Being the flexible lightweight JavaScript library, it is easy to build single-page applications using React.
  1. React is easy to learn as any developer with an understanding of HTML and JavaScript can start using it.
  1. The architecture of this framework is component-based. This determines that you can divide your web page into multiple components and they will work independently.

Where does React need improvement?

  • React is very popular and is also modified very frequently. The developers are adding new tools, and patterns every then and now. This makes it hard to handle documents leading to poor documentation.
  • People using React have complained about the difficulty in coding with JSX ( It is like JavaScript and HTML syntax).

Companies that use React

  • Facebook
  • UberEats
  • Atlassian
  • Netflix
  • DropBox

Back-end Frameworks

3. Next.js

Next.js is an open-source web development framework built on top of React. It helps the developers to create web applications and static websites. It has been ranked the top framework by Stat JS 2020.

The reason behind its success lies in the SDK used to perform hybrid static and server rendering, TypeScript Support, smart bundling, route pre-fetching, and more.

If we talk about GitHub, it has 83k stars, 17.7k forks, and 2064 contributors.

What makes Next different from other frameworks?

  1. It can be used to build static websites at a super-fast speed and those websites will act like dynamic ones.
  1. It provides a better and great user experience and provides an above-average performance.
  1. The greatest feature it has is being cost-effective. The cost of maintenance is very low as compared to other frameworks.

Where Next does need improvement?

The build time is high. As it supports the static building of the whole page. In the scenario where we need to create many web pages, then you can imagine the time it will be consumed to build it. Along with that, the plugin support is relatively poor.

Companies that use Next

  • Hulu
  • Nike
  • GitHub Copilot
  • Twitch
  • Netflix jobs

4. Express

The next on the list is the Express JavaScript framework. It is a backend framework. Its primary use is to create Restful APIs that will accept frontend requests and send the appropriate response.

It has 56.3K GitHub stars, 9.5K forks, and 280 contributors.

What makes Express different from other frameworks?

  1. Using Express as your backend framework you would be able to scale your performance quickly as it is supported by Node.js and with the additional nodes you can achieve scalability.
  1. It is supported by the Google V8 engine, with the help of which you can achieve great performance without any error or glitch.
  1. You can integrate with several third-party applications.

Where does Express need improvement?

There are only a few changes that need to be done. Like there are many issues with callbacks. Many requests are answered by middleware rather than the framework.

Companies that use Express

Testing Frameworks

5. JEST

It is an open-source JavaScript testing framework developed by Facebook in the year 2016 and is on top in the year 2022. Jest 27.5 version is its stable and current version.

The most amazing feature of Jest is its API which is well-documented and maintained. It requires a little configuration for the setup process.

Although it is used to test React and Native React applications, it can accept any JavaScript library or framework making it a universal testing tool.

It integrates seamlessly with Babel. Jest is ideal for snapshot testing. Now let us take a look at the features of this framework. With every passing day, Jest’s popularity is increasing.

Currently, it has 38.2k stars and 5.7k folks on GitHub.

What makes JEST different from other frameworks in 2022?

Jest provides some extraordinary features that other frameworks may lack. Here are the features:

  1. No configuration: Jest aims to work out of the box. It does not require any complex configuration setup. As soon as a user creates its react application, Jest is automatically configured.
  1. Parallel Testing: The ultimate target is to maximize performance in less time. Jest isolates all the tests by running them in their processors and running them in parallel.
  1. Easy to use: The company mainly focuses on the simplicity of this framework, which is unmatchable. It is easy to use and is fast as well. It executes a previously failed test first, and then rearranges and runs the test depending upon its length.
  1. Code Coverage: Jest collects the code coverage information from the entire project, even from the untested files. It does not need any additional setup to generate a code coverage, you just need to add “- coverage”.
  1. Mocking functions: Jest comes with a customer resolver that can be used to mock any object that is outside of your test scope. It has its own mocking library.

Where Jest needs improvement

  • It cannot handle larger projects where we will need different types of testing.
  • When it comes to larger snapshot files, the snapshot testing features do not support it.
  • As compared to other frameworks such as Jasmine and Mocha, it does not support that many library files and tooling.

Companies that use JEST

According to stackshare, there are around 2044 developers and 836 companies that use JEST. Some of the companies are:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Spotify
  • The New York Times
  • Airbnb

6. Cypress

Cypress is an open-source end-to-end testing framework built on top of Mocha. It is a JavaScript-based framework for Cypress E2E testing.

Cypress makes asynchronous testing simpler and more convenient to use. It uses the BDD/TDD assertion libraries. They provide a reliable, fast, and easy approach to running your test on the browser.

With around 332 contributors, 37K stars, and 2.2k forks on GitHub, Cypress is standing high in the market.

What makes Cypress different from other frameworks?

Cypress is the new change in the field of front-end testing. Every developer and tester needed this. It has a completely new architecture which is different from Selenium. Here are some features of Cypress that make it different.

  1. Real-time reloads: When any change is made in the test, Cypress automatically reloads it. You can see the real-time execution of the test in your application.
  1. Time Travel: This tool takes snapshots of the test that are being performed. With those snapshots, you can analyze how all the command execution takes place.
  1. User-friendly: This framework is built in a specific manner that can be easily understood by developers and QA engineers.
  1. Debugging: Cypress is a great tool when it comes to debugging. You do not need to hover over things that went wrong. With Cypress, directly debug your test using tools like Dev Chrome. Features such as readable errors and stack traces will add up to your debugging process, making it extremely fast.
  1. Automatic waiting: You do not need to worry about adding waiting or sleep time to your tests. Cypress will do that for you. Before moving to the next command or assertion, it waits for the previous one. This process removes the problem of asynchronization.

Where does Cypress need improvement?

  • Cypress can not handle multiple browser instances.
  • Cypress is compatible only with Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, and Electron browsers.
  • Remote execution is also not supported by Cypress.

Companies that use Cypress

Cypress has a strong community. Here are the names of a few companies that use Cypress:

  • PayPal
  • Johnsons and Johnsons
  • Walt Disney studio
  • AutoDesk
  • Airtable

7. Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a node.js library that provides a powerful API controllable by the users to handle the headless chrome or chromium browsers by overriding the Devtools protocol.

It can also be arranged in a manner that will support non-headless chrome or chromium. It makes headless testing easier. The puppeteer can perform most of the things that you can perform manually on the browser. For example, UI testing, keyboard input, and form submission can be automated using this tool.

It is maintained by the Chrome Devtools team. It has 76.7k stars, 8.2k forks, and about 403 contributors on GitHub.

What makes Puppeteer different from other frameworks?

Here are some of the features of Puppeteer :

  1. Users can mock resources, this will avoid issues like reliability, speed, and consistency.
  1. Calling the web socket payloads can be avoided, you just need to call API and see your work being performed automatically.
  1. Just by calling API will automatically launch chrome, open a new tab in the browser, proceed to the targeted site, capture the screenshot, and close the browser.
  1. Just by crawling over a single page application, you can create the pre-rendering content.
  1. You can also generate screenshots and create PDFs of the pages.

Where does Puppeteer need improvement?

The biggest disadvantage of Puppeteer is it is only compatible with Chrome. Although the company is under the experimental process with Mozilla Firefox, the outcome will take time.

This is why you cannot depend on Puppeteer if your project demands cross-browser compatibility. For that, you will have to go for other frameworks such as Nightwatch, etc.

Companies that use Puppeteer

  • Business Service companies such as
    • Olive
    • Facet Wealth
    • IHS Markit
  • Technical and Finance companies like
    • JP Morgan Chase
    • Cloudflare

Mobile and Desktop Frameworks

8. Electron

Electron is an open-source framework used for desktop application development. It is developed and maintained by GitHub. Electron, which was formally known as Atom Shell, is used to build cross-platform desktop applications with JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.

Chromium and Node.js are combined into one single runtime to accomplish the task. It has been ranked the number 1 desktop/mobile framework by the state of JS 2020.

On GitHub, it has 101K stars, 13.3k forks, and 1112 contributors, and it is used by over 224k users.

What makes Electron different from other frameworks?

Officially stated by the company if you can design a web application then designing a desktop application is very easy using Electron. Here are some top features of the framework:

  1. The technology used: Electron uses Chromium and Node.js. This will help you to build the application using CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. All these languages are easy to learn and work on.
  1. Debugging: Debugging and profiling with Electron is very convenient and easy.
  1. Similar to Web application: All electron-based applications behave like web applications only. The difference lies in downloading the files. The web applications can download files to the computer system whereas Electron files can access, read and write the file systems.

Where does Electron need improvement?

Electron apps run on Chromium. Each chromium version is around 20 million lines of code which are huge.

This means to run a single version, we will have to download Chromium on top of another operating system and this will consume a hell lot of space.

Companies that use Electron

9. React Native

The second in the list of top mobile and desktop frameworks is React Native. It is an open-source UI framework written in JavaScript and can be used to develop applications for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, web, android TV, and more.

It was developed by Facebook in the year 2015. You can easily build mobile applications and virtual reality applications using React Native and React.

It has 102k stars, 21.9k forks, 2301 contributors, and approximately 877k users on GitHub.

What makes React Native different from other frameworks?

Here are some features of React Native :

  1. Code Reusability: Being able to reuse the code makes apps run effectively on multiple platforms. The web application code can be reused for mobile application development, this will increase the development time as well.
  1. Developer Community: This open-source platform allows developers to contribute their knowledge to the development of the framework. If in case someone is stuck on a problem, a large community of developers is there to solve the issue.
  1. Simple UI: With reactive UI and a component-based approach, the interface of this framework is simple and can be easily used.

Where does React Native need improvement?

React Native is in the market for several years. But there is still room for improvement. This tool seems to be compatible but it is in its Beta phase. Developers may find some debugging and compatibility issues while using the app. If your developer is new to React Native, they may spend a lot of time-wasting on revisiting the document and length troubleshoots.

Companies that use React Native

Many companies that use React Native:

  • Instagram
  • Skype
  • Uber Eats
  • Wix
  • Medium

Conclusion

This is a wrap from our side. We have discussed all the top web automation frameworks for JavaScript in 2022. Along with that, we have also discussed their pros and cons.

So now depending on your requirement you can choose a framework for you. You can check out the framework that fulfills your demands.

This is all about the top popular web automation frameworks for JavaScript. Please share your valuable comments or suggestions, that will help us to learn new aspects and grow. Thank You. Happy Testing!

Aniruddha Chaudhari

Aniruddha Chaudhari

I am a Python enthusiast who loves Linux and Vim. I hold a Master of Computer Science degree from NIT Trichy and have 10 years of experience in the IT industry, focusing on the Software Development Lifecycle from Requirements Gathering, Design, Development to Deployment. I have worked at IBM, Ericsson, and NetApp, and I share my knowledge on CSEstack.org.

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