Introduction to Appium

What is Appium ?

Appium is an open source, cross platform, test automation tool for mobile software applications. Using Appium we can run automation tests on actual devices, emulators or simulators. Appium is one of the most popular test automation tool currently present in the market.

Other tools in this category:

• TestComplete: Mobile for Android and iOS devices
• Salendroid: Only for Android devices
• KeepItFunctional: Only for iOS devices
• Ranorex: For Android and iOS devices
• Robotium: Only for Android devices

Appium can automate all type of mobile software applications such as mobile native applications (Whatsapp, Facebook etc), Mobile web applications(Websites), Mobile Hybrid applications (Instagram, Wikipedia) across iOS and Android environments. It also has support for Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS along with the support for the in-built browser. Its cross-platform nature also helps in enhancing the re-usability of code across different platforms.

How Appium Works ?

• Appium is an “HTTP” server using Node.js platform and drives iOS and Android sessions using Selenium Webdriver JSON wire protocol
• When Appium is downloaded and installed then a server is setup on our computer that exposes a REST API
• It receives connection and command request from the client and executes the command on mobile devices (iOS and Android)

Benefits and features of Appium

• Appium is an Open Source Software
• Appium is cross platform
• Appium Supports all type of mobile software applications
• Appium Supports virtual Testing
• Multiple Language support (Java, Python, C#, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript with Node.js etc..)
• Compatible with all testing frameworks
• Easy to setup
• It doesn’t need any installation on the machine
• Integration with the other tools are also possible with the help of java

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