Selenium series: What is WebDriver and Selenium?

In the blog post by Matthew Casperson, the distinction between WebDriver and Selenium is clarified within the context of creating a Selenium WebDriver test framework. WebDriver is identified as a low-level HTTP-based API standard for interacting with web browsers, provided by the W3C, and is implemented by most major browsers through separate executable binaries. Selenium, on the other hand, is a higher-level library that simplifies these interactions by wrapping the WebDriver API calls in Java classes and interfaces, making it more practical for developers to write browser-interacting applications. The post explains that while the terms WebDriver, Selenium, and Selenium WebDriver are often used interchangeably, they usually refer to the Selenium API due to its widespread use and practicality over directly employing the WebDriver API. The series aims to guide developers in using Selenium to write WebDriver tests, emphasizing that although the two APIs are not technically identical, they are functionally treated as one in the process of browser automation.