Under the hood, Helium forwards each call to Selenium. The difference is that Helium's API is much more high-level. In Selenium, you need to use HTML IDs, XPaths and CSS selectors to identify web page elements. Helium on the other hand lets you refer to elements by user-visible labels. As a result, Helium scripts are typically 30-50% shorter than similar Selenium scripts. What's more, they are easier to read and more stable with respect to changes in the underlying web page. Selenium-python is great for web automation. Helium makes it easier to use. Helium ships with its own copies of ChromeDriver and geckodriver so you don't need to download and put them on your PATH. Unlike Selenium, Helium lets you interact with elements inside nested iFrames, without having to first "switch to" the iFrame. Helium notices when popups open or close and focuses / defocuses them like a user would. You can also easily switch to a window by (parts of) its title.
Features
- Web driver management
- iFrames
- Window management
- Implicit waits
- Explicit waits
- You need Python 3 and Chrome or Firefox