Question

What are the differences between POM and PageFactory in Selenium Webdriver?

Answer 1

Hi Raveena, Page Object Model (POM) and Page Factory has following differences:

1. A Page Object Model is a test design pattern which says organize page objects as per pages in such a way that scripts and page objects can be differentiated easily. A Page Factory is one way of implementing PageObject Model which is inbuilt in selenium.
2. In POM, you define locators using ‘By’ while in Page Factory, you use FindBy annotation to define page objects.
3. Page Object Model is a design approach while PageFactory is a class which provides implementation of Page Object Model design approach.
4. POM is not optimal as it does not provide lazy initialization while Page Factory provides lazy initialization.
5. Plain POM will not help in StaleElementReferecneException while Page Factory takes care of this exception by relocating web element every time whenever it is used.
6. In plain page object model, you need to initialize every page object individually otherwise you will encounter NullPointerException while In PageFactory all page objects are initialized (Lazily) by using initElements() method.

For further understanding, you can refer to the Selenium Certification.