What is difference between Selenium and Appium?

Question

I can not see the exact difference between Selenium and Appium. Both of these server and framework is it right?

But I see lots of codes in github, when use appium, but the sample code contains of only selenium webdriver elements. Please somebody inform me about two tools. So we use appium and selenium together?

Thank you,

Answer 1

Basic difference between selenium and appium

Appium :

1. It is used in mobile application(android & ios).
2. Having specific driver eg : AndroidDriver and IOSDriver

If you want to run automation below 17 api in android you have to use selendroid for it.

Selenium :

1. It is used for mobile web application.
2. It is having web driver which runs on web application.

Common Things :

1. Both are opensource.
2. Both can be customize.
3. Both use Json-Wire protocol.

for details refer https://www.quora.com/Which-one-is-better-Selenium-or-Appium-for-app-testing

Answer 2

Appium is a casing for Selenium to test native apps (IOS and Android). From Appium introduction

...wrapping the vendor-provided frameworks in one API, the WebDriver API. WebDriver (aka "Selenium WebDriver") specifies a client-server protocol (known as the JSON Wire Protocol). ...In other words, Appium & WebDriver clients are not technically "test frameworks" -- they are "automation libraries".

...WebDriver has become the de facto standard for automating web browsers, and is a W3C Working Draft. Why do something totally different for mobile? Instead we have extended the protocol with extra API methods useful for mobile automation.