--- title: 'FAQ: Selenium, Appium & Cloud Testing | TestingBot' description: 'Answers to common questions about running Selenium and Appium tests in the TestingBot cloud: how it works, costs, parallel execution, data retention, security and CI/CD integration.' source_url: html: https://testingbot.com/support/faq md: https://testingbot.com/support/faq/index.md --- # Frequently asked questions Answers to the most common questions about running Selenium, Appium and cloud testing on TestingBot. For framework-specific guides see the [documentation index](https://testingbot.com/support); for billing and account questions contact [support@testingbot.com](mailto:support@testingbot.com). ## Questions How does TestingBot's cloud test grid work? TestingBot runs an open-source Selenium and Appium grid that has been tuned for speed and reliability. Every test runs on a freshly-provisioned virtual machine (or real iOS/Android device). When the test ends, the VM is destroyed so there is no state carried between runs. You connect to the grid by changing your WebDriver endpoint to https://hub.testingbot.com/wd/hub and passing your API key and secret as capabilities — no other changes to your test code are required. How are costs calculated and how much will I be charged? TestingBot accounts include a pool of free minutes you can use to evaluate the service. After that, billing is based on test minutes and the number of parallel tests in your plan. We charge from the moment the test session starts until it ends — queue time and failures caused on our side are not billed. See [pricing](https://testingbot.com/pricing) for current plans, and [contact us](https://testingbot.com/contact/new) for volume or enterprise pricing. What happens if my test does not seem to run on your system? If a test does not start or behaves unexpectedly, check the dashboard at https://testingbot.com/members for an error code on the session. Common causes are an invalid browser/OS combination, missing or expired API credentials, or a tunnel that did not connect. Errors that originate on TestingBot's infrastructure are logged on our side and are not billed. Contact support@testingbot.com or open Slack with the session id and we will investigate. Why don't I see screenshots after my test finished? Screenshots and video are uploaded to our storage after the test completes and can take up to a few minutes to appear in the dashboard depending on the length of the session. If screenshots are still missing after 5 minutes, confirm that you have not disabled them via the screenrecorder or screenshots capabilities, and check that your session ended with driver.quit() (or the equivalent) rather than being killed mid-flight. My test fails with "could not find browser/operating system" — what's wrong? A CapabilityNotPresentOnTheGridException (or a similar "browser not found" error) means the browser + version + platform combination you requested is not currently offered. Check the live list of [supported browser combinations](https://testingbot.com/support/web-automate/browsers) and adjust your capabilities. Use latest, latest-1, latest-2 etc. for the major-version aliases if you do not need to pin to an exact version. Can I run my tests in parallel on TestingBot? Yes. Every plan includes a number of concurrent test sessions — you can run that many tests at the same time. Each session is fully isolated on its own VM or device, so parallel tests never interfere with each other. Most CI test runners (pytest-xdist, Jest, Mocha-parallel, Maven Surefire) and Selenium Grid clients launch parallel sessions natively. How long are test artifacts (logs, screenshots, video) kept? Test session metadata, screenshots, video recordings and logs are retained for 30 days by default on standard plans, and longer (up to 90 days or as configured) on Enterprise plans. You can also delete a session manually from the dashboard or via the REST API at any time. Test data is stored in our EU data centre — see [enterprise security](https://testingbot.com/enterprise/security) for compliance details (GDPR, CSA STAR, SOC 2). Does TestingBot integrate with CI/CD systems like GitHub Actions, Jenkins or CircleCI? Yes. TestingBot integrates with all major CI/CD systems — GitHub Actions, Jenkins, CircleCI, GitLab CI, Bitbucket Pipelines, Travis CI, TeamCity and Azure DevOps among others. You point your existing Selenium or Appium test runner at the TestingBot endpoint and add your key and secret as environment variables. See [integration guides](https://testingbot.com/support/integrations) for CI templates and recipes. How secure is TestingBot? Do you support SSO and tunnels? TestingBot is GDPR-compliant, CSA STAR-certified, and offers SOC 2 reports under NDA. The infrastructure is hosted in the EU. SAML/OIDC single sign-on (Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace) is available on Enterprise plans. To test pre-production sites, use the [TestingBot Tunnel](https://testingbot.com/support/tunnel) — an encrypted connection between your network and the test VM. See [enterprise security](https://testingbot.com/enterprise/security) for the full security overview. What's the difference between Live (manual) and Automated testing on TestingBot? Automated testing runs Selenium, Appium, Cypress, Playwright, Puppeteer or other framework scripts against the grid programmatically. Live testing gives you an interactive remote browser or device window — you point and click yourself, exactly like using a local browser. Most teams use both: automation for regression suites and live testing for exploratory testing and reproducing bugs reported by users. Pricing for each is separate (see [pricing](https://testingbot.com/pricing)). ## Need more help? - Browse the full [documentation](https://testingbot.com/support) for framework-specific guides. - Join the [TestingBot Slack workspace](https://join.slack.com/t/testingb0t/shared_invite/zt-3bcw9xch-jk19~6XPs_xBrsAgAedkCw). - Email [support@testingbot.com](mailto:support@testingbot.com) with your session id for fastest help. - Check the [status page](https://status.testingbot.com) for known incidents.