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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Testing Frameworks
  4. Browser Testing
  5. Playwright vs Selenium

Playwright vs Selenium

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Selenium
Selenium
Stacks16.2K
Followers12.6K
Votes527
GitHub Stars33.6K
Forks8.6K
Playwright
Playwright
Stacks613
Followers586
Votes81
GitHub Stars79.0K
Forks4.8K

Playwright vs Selenium: What are the differences?

Introduction

Here we will discuss the key differences between Playwright and Selenium. Both Playwright and Selenium are popular automation testing frameworks used for web applications. However, there are several significant differences between them.

1. Accessibility Testing Support:

Playwright comes with built-in support for accessibility testing, allowing developers to easily verify if their web application is accessible to users with disabilities. This feature is not available in Selenium, making Playwright a more suitable choice for developers aiming for inclusive web development.

2. Cross-Browser Testing Capability:

While Selenium is primarily focused on cross-browser testing, Playwright goes a step further by providing native multi-browser support. Playwright allows developers to write their automated tests once and execute them on multiple browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and WebKit. On the other hand, Selenium requires separate driver configurations for each browser, making Playwright more efficient and convenient for cross-browser testing.

3. Concurrent Execution Support:

Playwright enables concurrent execution of tests by utilizing modern browser capabilities. This means that multiple browser instances can run concurrently, leading to improved test execution speed. Selenium, on the other hand, does not provide built-in support for concurrent execution, resulting in slower test runs.

4. Language binding support:

Playwright supports multiple programming languages out of the box, including JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, and Java. Selenium also supports various programming languages, but Playwright's language binding support is more extensive and up-to-date. This allows developers to choose their preferred language and seamlessly integrate Playwright into their existing tech stack.

5. Same-Site Cookie Support:

Playwright offers native support for same-site cookies, which are essential for modern web applications that rely on authentication and session management. Selenium, on the other hand, requires additional configurations and workarounds to handle same-site cookies effectively. With Playwright, developers can ensure the reliability and security of their web applications without going through any extra hassle.

6. Debugging Capabilities:

Playwright provides built-in debugging capabilities, allowing developers to easily identify and diagnose issues during test execution. It offers features like screenshots on failure and video recording, making it easier to reproduce and fix bugs. Selenium also provides debugging functionalities, but Playwright's debugging capabilities are more user-friendly and comprehensive.

In summary, Playwright has several advantages over Selenium. It offers built-in accessibility testing support, native multi-browser functionality, concurrent execution support, extensive language binding support, excellent same-site cookie handling, and enhanced debugging capabilities. These features make Playwright a powerful and convenient choice for web application automation testing.

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Advice on Selenium, Playwright

Shivam
Shivam

Mar 5, 2020

Needs advice

we are having one web application developed in Reacts.js. in the application, we have only 4 to 5 pages that we need to test. I am having experience in selenium with java. Please suggets which tool I should use. and why ............................ ............................ .............................

241k views241k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Selenium
Selenium
Playwright
Playwright

Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that. Boring web-based administration tasks can (and should!) also be automated as well.

It is a Node library to automate the Chromium, WebKit and Firefox browsers with a single API. It enables cross-browser web automation that is ever-green, capable, reliable and fast.

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Node library; Headless supported; Enables cross-browser web automation; Improved automated UI testing
Statistics
GitHub Stars
33.6K
GitHub Stars
79.0K
GitHub Forks
8.6K
GitHub Forks
4.8K
Stacks
16.2K
Stacks
613
Followers
12.6K
Followers
586
Votes
527
Votes
81
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 177
    Automates browsers
  • 154
    Testing
  • 101
    Essential tool for running test automation
  • 24
    Record-Playback
  • 24
    Remote Control
Cons
  • 8
    Flaky tests
  • 4
    Slow as needs to make browser (even with no gui)
  • 2
    Update browser drivers
Pros
  • 15
    Cross browser
  • 11
    Open source
  • 9
    Test Runner with Playwright/test
  • 7
    Well documented
  • 7
    Promise based
Cons
  • 12
    Less help
  • 3
    Node based
  • 2
    Does not execute outside of browser

What are some alternatives to Selenium, Playwright?

BrowserStack

BrowserStack

BrowserStack is the leading test platform built for developers & QAs to expand test coverage, scale & optimize testing with cross-browser, real device cloud, accessibility, visual testing, test management, and test observability.

Sauce Labs

Sauce Labs

Cloud-based automated testing platform enables developers and QEs to perform functional, JavaScript unit, and manual tests with Selenium or Appium on web and mobile apps. Videos and screenshots for easy debugging. Secure and CI-ready.

LambdaTest

LambdaTest

LambdaTest platform provides secure, scalable and insightful test orchestration for website, and mobile app testing. Customers at different points in their DevOps lifecycle can leverage Automation and/or Manual testing on LambdaTest.

Karma

Karma

Karma is not a testing framework, nor an assertion library. Karma just launches a HTTP server, and generates the test runner HTML file you probably already know from your favourite testing framework. So for testing purposes you can use pretty much anything you like.

Rainforest QA

Rainforest QA

Rainforest gives you the reliability of a QA team and the speed of automation, without the hassle of managing a team or the pain of writing automated tests.

WebdriverIO

WebdriverIO

WebdriverIO lets you control a browser or a mobile application with just a few lines of code. Your test code will look simple, concise and easy to read.

Puppeteer

Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome over the DevTools Protocol. It can also be configured to use full (non-headless) Chrome.

TestingBot

TestingBot

TestingBot provides automated and Manual cross browser testing in the cloud. Make sure your website looks ok in all browsers.

Ghost Inspector

Ghost Inspector

It lets you create and manage UI tests that check specific functionality in your website or application. We execute these automated browser tests continuously from the cloud and alert you if anything breaks.

PhantomJS

PhantomJS

PhantomJS is a headless WebKit scriptable with JavaScript. It is used by hundreds of developers and dozens of organizations for web-related development workflow.

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