What is a Selenium Server?
A Selenium server is a software program that allows you to run scripts written in the Selenium Scripting Language. These scripts can be used to automate tasks on your web browser, such as filling out forms or clicking links. The term “Selenium Server” can be a little misleading, since it implies that you need a separate piece of software to run these scripts.
However, much like the Selenium browser drivers (used by many testing tools to test websites), there is a free and open source browser automation framework called WebDriver that includes a built-in Selenium Server. This means that once you’ve installed WebDriver on your machine, you can begin writing and executing Selenium tests without installing any additional software.
It also means that if your organization already has or uses another test automation tool (or even if everyone just uses their own Internet browsers for testing), you don’t necessarily need to change anything about the way you write your tests—you could simply install WebDriver and gain access to its Selenium Server.