What is selenium webdriver?

 What is selenium webdriver

What is selenium webdriver and how it help us in software testing process?

Webdriver in selenium (http://docs.seleniumhq.org/projects/webdriver/) is an Interface and it is designed to overcome some limitations of selenium RC software testing tool. However selenium WebDriver's development is in process so still there are few limitations and known issues available in selenium WebDriver. Selenium WebDriver is also known as Selenium 2 and used for web as well mobile

applications testing. It is freeware software testing tool and mostly used as a regression testing tool for web and mobile applications.

Selenium 2 supports most of all browsers to run your test cases and many programming languages like C#, Java, Python, Ruby, .Net, Perl, PHP, etc.. to create and modify your test scripts. Selenium 2(WebDriver) controls browser directly from operating system level so it is interacting very fast and with more realistic way with browsers. Major people in world using Selenium webdriver with java.

What are difference between Selenium IDE, RC and WebDriver

Selenium IDE	Selenium RC	Selenium WebDriver
It only works in Mozilla browser.	It supports with all browsers like Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari, Opera etc.	It supports with all browsers like Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari, Opera etc.
It supports Record and playback	It doesn’t supports Record and playback	It doesn’t supports Record and playback
Doesn’t required to start server before executing the test script.	Required to start server before executing the test script.	Doesn’t required to start server before executing the test script.
It is a GUI Plug-in	It is standalone java program which allow you to run Html test suites.	It actual core API which has binding in a range of languages.
Core engine is Javascript based	Core engine is Javascript based	Interacts natively with browser application
Very simple to use as it is record & playback.	It is easy and small API	As compared to RC, it is bit complex and large API.
It is not object oriented	API’s are less Object oriented	API’s are entirely Object oriented
It doesn’t supports of moving mouse cursors.	It doesn’t supports of moving mouse cursors.	It supports of moving mouse cursors.
Need to append full xpath with ‘xpath=\\’ syntax	Need to append full xpath with ‘xpath=\\’ syntax	No need to append full xpath with ‘xpath=\\’ syntax
It does not supports listeners	It does not supports listeners	It supports the implementation of listeners
It does not support to test iphone/Android applications	It does not support to test iphone/Android applications	It support to test iphone/Android applications