Cypress automation: The Strengths and Weaknesses

It is no secret that automated testing plays a crucial part in the software development. In addition to saving time and money, automation testing is a great way to catch errors early on in the process of development. Many testers are choosing Cypress over other automation tools out there. In this  post, we will take a deep look at the strengths and weaknesses of using this farmework for your projects. In this article, we will examine both the good and the bad of Cypress, so you can decide if it’s right for your organization.

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The Significance Of Cypress :

Developed for modern web applications, Cypress is an open-source and a test automation tool that can be integrated into continuous integration and delivery pipelines. As a result, Cypress tests are much more reliable than screenshot or Selenium tests because they run directly in the browser and use the browser’s API to control it.

The ability to test in real-time is one of Cypress’ biggest advantages. Your tests will be displayed as they are executed, so you can avoid nasty surprises when they are deployed. In addition to all this, it has a powerful command-line interface that makes it easy to automate tests.

Among the most popular tools for automating browsers is Cypress. When choosing a testing framework, you need to consider a number of factors. Cypress is a popular choice for software testers and quality assurance engineers, but it is not without its drawbacks.

Strengths And Weaknesses Of Cypress

In this section of the blog, we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Cypress framework.

What are the strengths of Cypress?

Here are some benefits that Cypress offers, making it a popular framework among testers.

• In addition to using a real browser to run tests, Cypress has another advantage. A headless browser, which simulates a browser but doesn’t actually display any interface, is what other end-to-end testing frameworks like Selenium use to run their tests. It is imperative to note that these headless browsers have their own set of bugs, whereas the real browser users will be using to access our application, like Chrome, has a different set of bugs. As a result, your tests may not always yield the same results as what our users will experience when using our application if we use a headless browser. On the other hand, Cypress runs our tests inside a real browser, which produces results that are virtually identical to those experienced by users.
• We can also use Cypress to take screenshots and videos of our site while Cypress is running our tests, as it has access to resources that most other frameworks do not have access to. This is extremely useful when tests fail because it allows us to see what happens when a certain sequence of steps is followed.
• Additionally, it has access to the network layer, making it possible to simulate any error that happens to our application’s server through simulating all the network requests that come in and go out.
• Cypress also takes into account the visibility of elements when running tests, which is another nice feature. In other words, incase you are testing to determine whether a button will work when clicked (visible: hidden;), but the button is either hidden behind another element or off the screen, Cypress will take that into account, resulting in a failure. Users cannot click on visible elements, so this is an important aspect that other frameworks do not necessarily take into account. We know that real users will have a very similar experience when using our application, so we want to make sure that our end-to-end tests are as accurate as possible.

What are the limitations of Cypress?

It is not appropriate to run serious test automation with Cypress because of some fundamental limitations. From the way tests are loaded to the way such tests run, Cypress has a number of technical limitations. Here are some of these limitations:

• Write test cases in JavaScript

There is no surprise that Cypress is only able to use Node.JS for test automation, since JavaScript is the world’s most famous programming language. This course requires advanced JavaScript skills, including promises, asynchronous JS,  jQuery, and other advanced techniques. If you do not have a compact understanding of  the JavaScript, the JavaScript Promise async programming model can be confusing. 

There has been a history of confusion when it comes to automated testing due to this. It differs from Selenium in that the test automation engineer is required to write JavaScript code, whereas Selenium requires the programmer to use a variety of programming languages. Thus, QA testers must either learn JavaScript or they will be disqualified. As is common with all NPM frameworks, this limitation to JavaScript also requires all NPM packages to be installed in the package.json file. The Cypress framework uses this to manage its dependencies, but it makes no sense for automated testing, even though it is how applications behave. Mocha tests can sometimes fail if the proper dependencies aren’t installed, and the node modules folder is quite large, so it limits how fast they run.

• Cypress might at times be slower

The Cypress tests execute at a good speed at the initial stage, which may be acceptable for demos, but as the app scales, the speed would slow down. The Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) is the only basis on which Cypress operates, allowing Chromium-based browsers to run a debugger. When running a partially small test suite, Cypress is about as fast, or slightly slower than Selenium WebDriver. This is noticeable when running a medium or large test suite as well. The process of automating tests with Cypress is inefficient and very difficult.

• Multi-tab support is not offered

Cypress runs inside the browser, so it cannot support multiple tabs during testing. In spite of this, there are workarounds. Multi-tab support is needed for simulation of user interaction, so we switched to Autify instead of Cypress.

• Intricate and erratic syntax

Although Cypress’s makers and marketers often emphasize its “Good syntax” as a reason to use it, in actuality, after testing it across a variety of scenarios and products, Cypress syntax seems quite inferior. Cypress has a level of syntactic ambiguity that makes it hard to use and understand. Since Cypress solely relies on JavaScript, the level of complexity encountered with it is greater than it is with other testing frameworks. Using asynchronous programming in conjunction with automated testing can be challenging, and there are usually a lot of tradeoffs involved. As a result, non-engineers or other stakeholders apart from the engineers cannot participate in the testing process during a software development life cycle (SDLC).

• Maintenance requirements

It is not uncommon for an inexperienced test automation engineer to have a very different perspective on quality assurance and test automation than that of an expert in the field. When it comes to industry-standard UI testing, there are specific rules and specifications that experts should understand. With the growth of an application, tests occur rapidly, and these tests are often large scale and automated. Maintaining Cypress has been found to be difficult. Creating tests is much easier than maintaining them with Cypress. Automation testing for an industry-standard application means that one keeps up with one’s automated tests as the application changes, which occurs very frequently.

Whenever it comes to automated testing, it is the ease of use that matters, as it isn’t just a technology for programmers, but also a technology for the general public, and if maintaining tests is as difficult as creating them, then there is an imbalance. Cypress is geared more towards enhancing and stabilizing than running automated tests itself, so it is difficult to rely on it solely for automated testing.

However,  all the above problems can be solved by a cloud-based Cypress testing platform called LambdaTest. LambdaTest is a leading test execution and orchestration platform. With 3000+ browsers, operating systems, and real device combinations available, users can test web and mobile apps both manually and automatically. LambdaTest helps organizations all over the world to achieve faster go-to-market by enabling quicker feedback to developers. LambdaTest has over 500 organization-based customers and over one million users in 130+ countries.

The Final Verdict :

Generally speaking, Cypress is a great choice for automated testing. It is easy to use, reliable, and has a broad range of features that are ideal for testing modern web applications. Cypress is a tool built for the 21st century if you need a tool to automate browsers. It has many advantages. Before implementing them in your own projects, it is important to be aware of their disadvantages. Cypress is a powerful tool that can accelerate your testing process, but it has some drawbacks as well. We can assist you in avoiding these pitfalls while maximizing the power of Cypress.

Since Cypress is an open-source framework, it is a lifeline for freelance web developers and testers.