How much does Selenium cost?

Selenium is free to use. We verified this against the vendor's own page; see "What we checked" below for the date.

Does Selenium have a free plan?

Yes. Selenium is free to use at its base level.

What are the main drawbacks of Selenium?

The trade-offs we noted: Infrastructure not included: Local browsers, remote Grid machines or a separate hosted provider must supply execution capacity.; Test framework required: Selenium documentation states that assertions and broader test structure come from assertion libraries and test runners.; Environment maintenance: Browser, driver, language binding and Grid compatibility must be managed across updates..

When should you not use Selenium?

Skip Selenium if: You expect a hosted browser and device cloud to be included; The team cannot maintain browser drivers, Grid capacity, selectors and synchronization logic; The primary requirement is native mobile-app automation rather than browser or mobile-web automation.

Developer Tools

Selenium

Open-source browser automation through WebDriver, IDE and Grid.

What it is

Selenium is an Apache-2.0-licensed open-source browser-automation project comprising WebDriver language bindings, Selenium IDE and Selenium Grid. It controls supported browsers locally or remotely, but it does not itself provide hosted browsers, application-specific test cases, assertions or a complete test runner; teams assemble and operate those surrounding parts.

Selenium pricing

Selenium does not publish a plan ladder we could verify. Free.

Prices read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-08-24. Vendors change plans without notice — check the source before you budget. Price verification log.

Key features

WebDriver
Controls supported browsers through native browser automation interfaces and language bindings.
Selenium Grid
Routes sessions to remote browser instances for parallel and cross-platform execution.
Selenium IDE
Records and replays browser actions through supported browser extensions.
WebDriver BiDi
Adds bidirectional browser events such as network, console and JavaScript error streams.

Strengths and trade-offs

What works well

Standards-based control: WebDriver is a W3C Recommendation implemented with browser-specific drivers.
Language options: Official downloads list bindings for Java, Python, C#, Ruby, JavaScript and Kotlin.
Distributed execution: Grid routes WebDriver commands to remote browser instances and supports parallel, cross-platform testing.
Record and playback: Selenium IDE records browser actions through Chrome, Firefox and Edge extensions.

Where it falls short

Infrastructure not included: Local browsers, remote Grid machines or a separate hosted provider must supply execution capacity.
Test framework required: Selenium documentation states that assertions and broader test structure come from assertion libraries and test runners.
Environment maintenance: Browser, driver, language binding and Grid compatibility must be managed across updates.
UI-change sensitivity: Application locators, timing and workflows still require deliberate test design and maintenance.

Who it is for

Engineering and QA teams that need programmable browser automation and can own test architecture, execution infrastructure and maintenance.

Pick it or skip it

Pick Selenium if

Cross-browser web tests that need supported language bindings and direct browser control
Teams building their own local or distributed browser-testing infrastructure
Projects willing to combine Selenium with an assertion library and test runner

Skip it if

You expect a hosted browser and device cloud to be included
The team cannot maintain browser drivers, Grid capacity, selectors and synchronization logic
The primary requirement is native mobile-app automation rather than browser or mobile-web automation

Our verdict

Choose Selenium for portable browser control and ecosystem flexibility when your team can supply the test framework and infrastructure; compare hosted services if device access and operations matter more than control.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Selenium cost?: Selenium is free to use. We verified this against the vendor's own page; see "What we checked" below for the date.
Does Selenium have a free plan?: Yes. Selenium is free to use at its base level.
Who is Selenium best for?: Engineering and QA teams that need programmable browser automation and can own test architecture, execution infrastructure and maintenance.
What are the main drawbacks of Selenium?: The trade-offs we noted: Infrastructure not included: Local browsers, remote Grid machines or a separate hosted provider must supply execution capacity.; Test framework required: Selenium documentation states that assertions and broader test structure come from assertion libraries and test runners.; Environment maintenance: Browser, driver, language binding and Grid compatibility must be managed across updates..
When should you not use Selenium?: Skip Selenium if: You expect a hosted browser and device cloud to be included; The team cannot maintain browser drivers, Grid capacity, selectors and synchronization logic; The primary requirement is native mobile-app automation rather than browser or mobile-web automation.

What we checked

Public APIOffers a documented API you can build against.Yes
Mobile appHas a native app for iOS or Android, not just a mobile website.No
Open source / self-hostableSource is open and the tool can be run on your own infrastructure.Yes
SSO (SAML)Supports SAML single sign-on on at least one plan.No

“Not checked” means exactly that — we have not verified it, and we do not guess.

Evidence and freshness

Status: Official sources reviewedReviewed: 2026-08-24

Selenium — Project overview ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: WebDriver, Selenium IDE, Selenium Grid, browser automation scope, remote execution
Selenium — WebDriver ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: native browser control, local and remote execution, W3C Recommendation, WebDriver BiDi, browser events
Selenium — Getting started ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: major-browser support, browser-specific drivers, language-binding setup, local prerequisites, Grid scaling path
Selenium — Grid ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: remote machines, parallel execution, browser versions, cross-platform testing, customer setup
Selenium — Organizing tests ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: assertion-library requirement, test-runner requirement, browser automation uses, test organization, terms-of-service caution for scraping
SeleniumHQ — Source and license ↗
Checked 2026-08-24 · Supports: open-source repository, Apache-2.0 license, project source, language implementations

Limit: Official project documentation and repository metadata were reviewed; ToolCompare did not run a browser suite, operate Grid, compare language bindings, measure reliability or performance, validate browser-version compatibility or assess third-party hosted providers.

Tools that do the same job as Selenium

Same job, different pricing. Verified starting price first.

Browse all tools we track →

More Developer Tools tools: see the full Developer Tools category