Difference Between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4

Selenium is one of the most popular tools for web automation testing. With the release of Selenium 4, many new features and improvements were introduced.

So, how is Selenium 4 different from Selenium 3?

Let’s break it down in simple words.

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📌 1. W3C WebDriver Standard Support

🟡 Selenium 3

• Used its own WebDriver implementation

• Communication between the browser and test script wasn’t standardized

🟢 Selenium 4

• Fully supports W3C WebDriver Protocol

• More stable and faster browser interactions

• Better compatibility with modern browsers

✅ Benefit: Fewer bugs and better performance across Chrome, Firefox, etc.

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📌 2. No Need for DesiredCapabilities

🟡 Selenium 3

• Used DesiredCapabilities to set browser-specific settings

🟢 Selenium 4

• Introduces Options classes like ChromeOptions, FirefoxOptions

• These are now preferred and easier to use

✅ Benefit: Cleaner, more readable code

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📌 3. Improved Selenium Grid

🟡 Selenium 3

• Complicated setup with Hub and Node

• Hard to scale or manage

🟢 Selenium 4

• Comes with a new Selenium Grid architecture

• Supports Docker, Kubernetes, and distributed mode

• Has a built-in UI dashboard

✅ Benefit: Easier to manage and scale tests across machines

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📌 4. New Relative Locators

🟡 Selenium 3

• Could find elements only by ID, name, XPath, CSS, etc.

🟢 Selenium 4

• Adds relative locators (e.g., above, below, near, toLeftOf, toRightOf)

WebElement label = driver.findElement(RelativeLocator.with(By.tagName("input")).below(header));

✅ Benefit: More human-like and readable element selection

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📌 5. Enhanced DevTools Integration

🟡 Selenium 3

• No direct access to browser developer tools

🟢 Selenium 4

• Adds support for Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP)

• Allows network tracking, console logs, geolocation, device emulation, etc.

✅ Benefit: Powerful testing features like performance analysis, blocking requests, capturing logs

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📌 6. Better Documentation and UI Changes

🟡 Selenium 3

• Outdated documentation

• Old-style Selenium Grid UI

🟢 Selenium 4

• New and improved documentation

• Fresh and modern Selenium Grid dashboard

✅ Benefit: Easier to learn and navigate

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📌 7. Improved Actions Class for Interactions

🟡 Selenium 3

• Limited support for complex user gestures

🟢 Selenium 4

• Better control for actions like drag & drop, zoom, multi-touch gestures

✅ Benefit: More reliable interaction testing

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📌 8. Native Support for WebDriverManager (Optional)

While not part of core Selenium, Selenium 4 plays better with tools like WebDriverManager (to auto-download browser drivers), making test setup easier.

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✅ Summary Table

Feature	Selenium 3	Selenium 4
W3C Standard Support	Partial	Full support (stable)
Relative Locators	❌ No	✅ Yes (above, below, near)
DevTools Access	❌ No	✅ Yes (CDP integration)
Selenium Grid	Basic, harder to manage	Modern, scalable, Docker-friendly
Locating Elements	XPath, CSS, ID only	XPath, CSS, ID + relative locators
Browser Capabilities	DesiredCapabilities	Options classes preferred
Documentation & UI	Old-style	New and improved
User Interaction Support	Basic	Advanced actions (drag, zoom, etc.)

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🧠 Final Thoughts

Selenium 4 is a major upgrade that brings:

• Better speed and stability

• Smarter ways to find elements

• Easier test environment setup

• More power for browser automation

If you’re still using Selenium 3, it’s a great time to switch to Selenium 4 and enjoy the new features.

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