What is difference between Xvfb and Chromedriver and when to use them

Question

Hi I am planning to setup selenium to test my web application.

I have read that both chromedriver and Xvfb can be used to run the tests. I have also read that Xvfb can be configured to use chromdriver.

So that got me confused. What role does chromedriver and Xvfb in running the selenium tests?

Thanks

Answer 1

Let us first understand the difference chromedriver and xvfb and then a code snippet will make it more clear.

1. chromedriver - to run tests on chrome browser (with GUI).

2. Xvfb - to run tests in headless mode. Can be any browser including chrome (Browser graphical user interface will not be displayed, thus you can use the machine for a few different operations).

 

code snippets (python):

Chrome Driver (download here):

browser = webdriver.Chrome() // to launch tests in Chrome browser.

Xvfb - using pyvirtualdisplay (python wrapper for Xvfb) :

from pyvirtualdisplay import Display

from selenium import webdriver

display = Display(visible=0, size=(800, 600))

display.start()

# now Chrome will run in a virtual display. 

# you will not see the browser.

browser = webdriver.Chrome()

browser.get('http://www.google.com')

print browser.title

browser.quit()

display.stop()