# Selenium

15 Hacker News commenters recommended Selenium and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Long-established free browser automation tool people use for scripting and testing. Critics say it is brittle and flaky on dynamic pages.

## Why people recommend it

- Long-established, widely used ecosystem (3 comments): "selenium is very entrenched in many parts of the world, especially outside of SF/USA" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378577)) "created an entire ecosystem of tools, users, companies, and economic activity" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378663)) "I'm specifically suggesting Selenium because it's been around so long" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46967273))
- Enabled browser automation, big professional impact (4 comments): "it was a game changer and had a big impact on my professional life" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378680)) "The good old days of browser automation! Thanks a lot for Selenium" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46383416)) "selenium is a masterpiece. Thanks for sharing it with the world" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378740))
- Solid, reliable in containers (3 comments): "I have never had an issue with browser automation like selenium in containers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47029840)) "Don't get me wrong it's still solid technology though." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46381843)) "Worked well after some initial trial and error." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46915882))

## What people warn about

- Brittle and flaky on dynamic pages (3 comments): "Tools like Selenium and Playwright have introduced explicit waits, which observe the DOM. This helps, but doesn't solve everything." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46738402)) "they are a bit brittle with respect to the web design" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47662141)) "Selenium is hot flaky garbage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47329992))
- Dated, overengineered, not built for AI (3 comments): "neither selenium nor playwright were designed with ai in mind from day 1" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378210)) "massively overengineered (Puppeteer, Selenium, computer-use)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47478058)) "isn't Selenium technology from the 90's?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48479480))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Playwright](https://hackerapproved.com/p/playwright.md): 137 recommend
- [Playwright CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/playwright-cli.md): 19 recommend
- [Puppeteer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/puppeteer.md): 14 recommend
- [Stagehand](https://hackerapproved.com/p/stagehand.md): 13 recommend
- [Vibium](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vibium.md): 12 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Selenium", https://hackerapproved.com/p/selenium/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).