Difference between selenium server and selenium server standalone jars

Question

What is the difference between "selenium server" and "selenium server standalone" jars?

Answer 1

If you use WebDriver API, then you don’t need the Selenium-Server.If you run your browser and tests on the same machine, and your tests only uses the WebDriver API, then you don’t need to run the Selenium-Server.WebDriver will run the browser directly.

Why Selenium-Server compared to Selenium-WebDriver?

Reasons are:

1. You are using Selenium-Grid to distribute your tests over multiple machines or virtual machines (VMs).
2. You want to connect to a remote machine that has a particular browser version that is not on your current machine.
3. You are not using the Java bindings (i.e. Python, C#, or Ruby) and would like to use HtmlUnit Driver.