What is the difference between Action and Actions in Selenium?

Question

I would like to know the difference between Action and Actions in Selenium

Answer 1

Action:

In Selenium, Action is an interface which represents a single user-interaction action. It is defined in org.openqa.selenium.interactions. It contains one of the most widely used method perform(). You can find more about the implementing Classes and Methods in this link.

Action Example:

In the below image, if we mouse hover the keyword Action, the violet colored I indicates that Action is an interface.

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Actions:

In Selenium, Actions is a Class. It is defined in org.openqa.selenium.interactions. This is the user-facing API for emulating complex user gestures. Actions Class implements the builder pattern, which can build a CompositeAction containing all actions specified by the method calls. You can find more about the Method Summary in this link.

Actions Example:

In the below image, if we mouse hover the keyword Actions, the green colored C indicates that Actions is a Class.

Answer 2

Action is an interface :

public interface Action

Action Interface representing a single user-interaction action.

VS

Actions is a Class that extends from Object

public class Actions
extends java.lang.Object

The user-facing API for emulating complex user gestures. Use this class rather than using the Keyboard or Mouse directly.

Edit:

Thanks to @mrfreester pointed out. You can string a bunch of actions together using Actions, and then once you call build() it will store that set of steps as an Action. Once you have an Action, you can call perform() to execute that set of steps.