Selenium: implicit wait vs explicit wait — when to use each?

Question

Docs warn against mixing them. Why? And what do you actually run in prod?

Jonas Hansen · Accepted Answer

Never mix them — implicit wait applies to every findElement and silently interacts with explicit waits, doubling timeouts unpredictably. In prod: set implicit wait to 0 and use WebDriverWait + ExpectedConditions everywhere. Explicit waits are targeted, debuggable, and don't leak.

driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(Duration.ZERO);
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(10));
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.id("submit"))).click();

Selenium: implicit wait vs explicit wait — when to use each?

1 answer