What is difference between Implicit wait and Explicit wait in Selenium WebDriver?

Differences:

1) Implicit wait is set for the entire duration of the webDriver object. Suppose , you want to wait for a certain duration, let's say 5 seconds before each element or a lot of elements on the webpage load. Now, you wouldn't want to write the same code again and again. Hence, implicit wait. However, if you want to wait for only one element, use explicit.

2) You not only need web element to show up but also to be clickable or to satisfy certain other property of web elements. Such kind of flexibility can be provided by explicit wait only. Specially helpful if dynamic data is being loaded on webpage. You can wait for that element to be developed (not just show up on DOM) using explicit wait.

Check the below links:

• Implicit Wait - It instructs the web driver to wait for some time by poll the DOM. Once you declared implicit wait it will be available for the entire life of web driver instance. By default the value will be 0. If you set a longer default, then the behavior will poll the DOM on a periodic basis depending on the browser/driver implementation.

• Explicit Wait + ExpectedConditions - It is the custom one. It will be used if we want the execution to wait for some time until some condition achieved.

Implicit wait --

Implicit waits are basically your way of telling WebDriver the latency that you want to see if specified web element is not present that WebDriver looking for. So in this case, you are telling WebDriver that it should wait 10 seconds in cases of specified element not available on the UI (DOM).

Explicit wait--

Explicit waits are intelligent waits that are confined to a particular web element. Using explicit waits you are basically telling WebDriver at the max it is to wait for X units of time before it gives up.