The Selenium IDE alternative for Chrome
Selenium IDE is a free, open-source record-and-playback extension built by the Selenium project, aimed mainly at QA engineers writing browser tests. It's excellent at that job, but looping over a spreadsheet of data and scheduling a run both mean stepping outside the IDE — exporting to real code, or wiring up its command-line runner to a separate scheduler like cron or a CI job. Here's how EasyAgent compares if what you actually want is "run this against every row in my spreadsheet, on a timer."
FREE · NO ACCOUNT · NO CODE EXPORT NEEDED
Short version: Selenium IDE is free and open source (part of the Selenium project), and it's a
genuinely solid choice for QA engineers who want Selenium-flavored browser tests without hand-writing code. But
two things it doesn't do out of the box: loop a test over an external CSV/spreadsheet — there's no
built-in data-driven testing, so you either author variables by hand, install a community plugin, or export the
test to real Selenium WebDriver code — and scheduling, since it has no scheduler at all; recurring runs
mean wiring its command-line runner, selenium-side-runner, up to your own cron job or CI pipeline.
EasyAgent covers spreadsheet-driven bulk replay and scheduling directly in the extension, with nothing to
export or wire up.
EasyAgent vs Selenium IDE
| EasyAgent | Selenium IDE | |
|---|---|---|
| Availability | Active, free, on the Chrome Web Store today | Active, free & open source (Selenium project), Chrome + Firefox |
| How you build a test | Click record, use the page normally, stop | Record, then edit Selenese commands directly in the IDE |
| Looping over data | Paste rows from Excel, no setup | No built-in CSV import — needs a community plugin or exporting to code with your own data-loading logic |
| Extracting values | Add an Extract step, no syntax to learn | store / store text / store value commands, saved as variables |
| Running many rows unattended | Bulk replay across pasted rows, built in | Command-line runner (selenium-side-runner) for CI / cross-browser batches |
| Scheduling | Built in — 15 minutes to 24 hours, or custom | None — needs your own cron job or CI schedule around the command-line runner |
| Cost | Free, one tier, everything included | Free, open source, no paid tier at all |
| Account required | No | No |
If you're coming from Selenium IDE
Selenium IDE's Selenese commands are built for test authoring, with control-flow and assertions EasyAgent doesn't try to replicate. If your actual goal is simpler — repeat the same flow once per spreadsheet row — the concepts still mostly line up:
store text / store value commands→An Extract step (reads text, or the value of an input)for each / while loop wrapping a CSV read→Paste your rows on the Data tab, one replay per row automaticallyif / else if conditional branches→Per-step retries and "stop this row if it fails," set per stepselenium-side-runner + your own cron/CI schedule→The built-in Schedule tab, no CI pipeline neededWhat EasyAgent doesn't do
Not a full replacement for everything Selenium IDE can do
- No control-flow commands like
if/while/for eachinside a run — EasyAgent doesn't have branching logic beyond per-step retry/stop-on-failure; genuinely conditional test logic is Selenium IDE's (or real code's) job. - No cross-browser/CI test runner — Selenium IDE's command-line runner can fan a suite out across browsers and operating systems in parallel; EasyAgent only replays inside your own Chrome.
- Not built for QA assertions — Selenium IDE has purpose-built verify/assert commands for pass/fail test reporting; EasyAgent's per-row success/fail is about completing the replay, not asserting page state.