Appium is an open-source tool for automating mobile, web, and hybrid applications on iOS, Android, and Windows platforms. It allows you to write tests using the WebDriver protocol and supports multiple programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, Python, and more.
Automate Mobile Applications
This code demonstrates how to automate an Android mobile application using Appium. It initializes a WebDriver client with the necessary capabilities and performs a click action on an element identified by its accessibility ID.
const wdio = require('webdriverio');
const opts = {
port: 4723,
capabilities: {
platformName: 'Android',
platformVersion: '9',
deviceName: 'emulator-5554',
app: '/path/to/the/app.apk',
automationName: 'UiAutomator2'
}
};
(async () => {
const client = await wdio.remote(opts);
await client.init();
await client.elementByAccessibilityId('SomeElement').click();
await client.quit();
})();Automate Web Applications on Mobile Browsers
This code demonstrates how to automate a web application on a mobile browser using Appium. It initializes a WebDriver client with the necessary capabilities for a Chrome browser on an Android emulator, navigates to a URL, and retrieves the page title.
const wdio = require('webdriverio');
const opts = {
port: 4723,
capabilities: {
platformName: 'Android',
platformVersion: '9',
deviceName: 'emulator-5554',
browserName: 'Chrome',
automationName: 'UiAutomator2'
}
};
(async () => {
const client = await wdio.remote(opts);
await client.url('http://example.com');
const title = await client.getTitle();
console.log('Title:', title);
await client.quit();
})();Automate Hybrid Applications
This code demonstrates how to automate a hybrid application using Appium. It initializes a WebDriver client with the necessary capabilities for an iOS device, switches to the webview context, navigates to a URL, and retrieves the page title.
const wdio = require('webdriverio');
const opts = {
port: 4723,
capabilities: {
platformName: 'iOS',
platformVersion: '13.3',
deviceName: 'iPhone 11',
app: '/path/to/the/app.app',
automationName: 'XCUITest'
}
};
(async () => {
const client = await wdio.remote(opts);
await client.init();
await client.context('WEBVIEW_1');
await client.url('http://example.com');
const title = await client.getTitle();
console.log('Title:', title);
await client.quit();
})();Selenium WebDriver is a popular tool for automating web applications across different browsers. Unlike Appium, which is designed for mobile applications, Selenium WebDriver is primarily focused on web automation. It supports multiple programming languages and is widely used for browser-based testing.
Detox is an end-to-end testing library for mobile applications, specifically designed for React Native apps. It provides fast and reliable testing by running tests directly on the device or emulator. Unlike Appium, which supports multiple platforms and languages, Detox is tailored for React Native and JavaScript.
Calabash is an open-source framework for automated acceptance testing of mobile apps. It supports both Android and iOS platforms and allows you to write tests in Cucumber, a behavior-driven development (BDD) tool. Compared to Appium, Calabash is more focused on BDD and uses a different approach for writing tests.
Appium is an open source, cross-platform test automation tool for native, hybrid and mobile web and desktop apps. We support simulators (iOS), emulators (Android), and real devices (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac).
Want to skip straight to the action? Check out our getting started doc.
Appium supports app automation across a variety of platforms, like iOS, Android, and Windows. Each platform is supported by one or more "drivers", which know how to automate that particular platform. Choose a driver below for specific information about how that driver works and how to set it up:
Investing in the WebDriver protocol means you are betting on a single, free and open protocol for testing that has become a web standard. Don't lock yourself into a proprietary stack.
For example, if you use Apple's XCUITest library without Appium you can only write tests using Obj-C/Swift, and you can only run tests through Xcode. Similarly, with Google's UiAutomator or Espresso you can only write tests in Java/Kotlin. Appium opens up the possibility of true cross-platform native app automation, for mobile and beyond. Finally!
If you're new to Appium, or want a more comprehensive description of what this is all about, please read our Introduction to Appium Concepts.
Your environment needs to be set up for the particular platforms that you want to run tests on. Each of the drivers above documents the requirements for their particular brand of automation. At a minimum, you will need to be able to run Node.js 10+.
Check out our Getting Started guide to get going with Appium.
There is also sample code that contains many examples of tests in a variety of different languages!
For prettily-rendered docs, please visit appium.io. You can always find the full list of Appium doc pages at Appium's GitHub Repo as well.
Please take a look at our contribution documentation for instructions on how to build, test and run Appium from source.
Interested in where Appium is heading in the future? Check out the Roadmap
Announcements and debates often take place on the Discussion Group, be sure to sign up!
We put together a troubleshooting guide. Please have a look here first if you run into any problems. It contains instructions for checking a lot of common errors and how to get in touch with the community if you're stumped.
FAQs
Automation for Apps.
The npm package appium receives a total of 319,869 weekly downloads. As such, appium popularity was classified as popular.
We found that appium demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 8 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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