selenium - Which ChromeDriver version is compatible with which Chrome Browser version?

Question

Actually I'm a bit confused. Although I read several resources about this.

For having a test of Selenium 3 using ChromeBrowser we need an extra app called ChromeDriver.

I found this text from GitHub:

ChromeDriver is only compatible with Chrome version 12.0.712.0 or newer. If you need to test an older version of Chrome, use Selenium RC and a Selenium-backed WebDriver instance.

My question is are all ChromeDriver versions compatible with all Chrome version? No conflict between each version?

Where can I find documentation of all versions matching between the ChromeDriver & ChromeBrowser?

Answer 1

Compatibility matrix

Here is a chart of the compatibility between chromedriver and chrome. This information can be found at the Chromedriver downloads page.

chromedriver    chrome
2.46            71-73
2.45            70-72
2.44            69-71
2.43            69-71
2.42            68-70
2.41            67-69
2.40            66-68
2.39            66-68
2.38            65-67
2.37            64-66
2.36            63-65
2.35            62-64
2.34            61-63
2.33            60-62
---------------------
2.28            57+
2.25            54+
2.24            53+
2.22            51+
2.19            44+
2.15            42+

After 2.46, the ChromeDriver major version matches Chrome

chromedriver    chrome
76.0.3809.68    76
75.0.3770.140   75
74.0.3729.6     74
73.0.3683.68    73

It seems compatibility is only guaranteed within that revision.

If you need to run chromedriver across multiple versions of chrome for some reason, well, plug the latest version number of chrome you're using into the Chromedriver version selection guide, then hope for the best. Actual compatibility will depend on the exact versions involved and what features you're using.

All versions are not cross-compatible.

For example, we had a bug today where chromedriver 2.33 was trying to run this on Chrome 65:

((ChromeDriver) driver).findElement(By.id("firstName")).sendKeys("hello")

Due to the navigation changes in Chrome 63, updated in Chromedriver 2.34, we got back

unknown error: call function result missing 'value'

Updating to Chromedriver 2.37 fixed the issue.