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Playwright vs Puppeteer: What are the differences?
Key differences between Playwright and Puppeteer
1. Cross-Browser Compatibility: Playwright supports multiple web browsers such as Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit, allowing developers to test their applications across different browser engines. On the other hand, Puppeteer is limited to Chromium only, restricting the testing to a single browser engine.
2. Multi-Page Support: Playwright provides built-in support for working with multiple pages within a single browser context. This allows developers to easily navigate between various pages, open new tabs, and interact with multiple pages simultaneously. Puppeteer, however, does not have native multi-page support, requiring developers to handle multiple pages manually.
3. Event-Based Architecture: Playwright follows an event-driven architecture, which means it provides APIs to listen to various browser events. This allows developers to efficiently handle asynchronous operations, wait for specific events, and take actions accordingly. In contrast, Puppeteer utilizes a promise-based approach, which may not provide the same level of control and flexibility as an event-driven architecture.
4. Cross-Platform Support: Playwright is designed to work seamlessly on different operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. This allows developers to write code once and run their tests on various platforms without modification. Puppeteer, on the other hand, is primarily targeted towards Chromium-based browsers on desktop platforms and may not offer the same level of cross-platform compatibility.
5. Auto-Waiting: Playwright incorporates auto-waiting mechanisms, allowing it to automatically wait for various conditions to be fulfilled before executing the next step. This helps eliminate the need for explicit waits in code, making test scripts more concise and reliable. Puppeteer does not have built-in auto-waiting functionality, requiring developers to manually add wait statements for synchronization.
6. Recording and Playing Back Interactions: Playwright provides the ability to record user interactions and later play them back as part of automated tests. This feature can be particularly useful for generating test scripts by simply recording manual interactions with the application. Puppeteer does not have native support for recording and playing back interactions, requiring developers to implement this functionality manually.
In Summary, Playwright offers cross-browser compatibility, multi-page support, event-based architecture, cross-platform support, auto-waiting mechanisms, and recording and playing back interactions, which sets it apart from Puppeteer.
Advice on Playwright and Puppeteer
Ankur Loriya
Software Engineer · | 2 upvotes · 70.9K views
I am using Node 12 for server scripting and have a function to generate PDF and send it to a browser. Currently, we are using PhantomJS to generate a PDF. Some web post shows that we can achieve PDF generation using Puppeteer. I was a bit confused. Should we move to puppeteerJS? Which one is better with NodeJS for generating PDF?
Replies (2)
Stoyan Kyosev
You better go with puppeteer. It is basically chrome automation tool, written in nodejs. So what you get is PDF, generated by chrome itself. I guess there is hardly better PDF generation tool for the web. Phantomjs is already more or less outdated as technology. It uses some old webkit port that's quite behind in terms of standards and features. It can be replaced with puppeteer for every single task.
Bhaawna Manoranjan
I suggest puppeteer to go for. It is simple and easy to set up. Only limitaiton is it can be used only for chrome browser and currently they are looking into expanding into FF. The next thing is Playwright which is just a scale up of Puppeteer. It supports cross browsers.
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Learn MorePros of Playwright
Pros of Puppeteer
Pros of Playwright
- Cross browser14
- Open source10
- Test Runner with Playwright/test9
- Promise based7
- Well documented7
- Execute tests in parallel5
- Integrate your POMs as extensible fixtures5
- API Testing5
- Capture videos, screenshots and other artifacts on fail4
- Python Support4
- Context isolation3
- Inbuild reporters html,line,dot,json3
- Fastest2
Pros of Puppeteer
- Very well documented10
- Scriptable web browser10
- Promise based6
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Cons of Playwright
Cons of Puppeteer
Cons of Playwright
- Less help12
- Node based3
- Does not execute outside of browser2
Cons of Puppeteer
- Chrome only10
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- No public GitHub repository available -
What is Playwright?
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.
What is 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.
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What are some alternatives to Playwright and Puppeteer?
Selenium
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.
Protractor
Protractor is an end-to-end test framework for Angular and AngularJS applications. Protractor runs tests against your application running in a real browser, interacting with it as a user would.
Cypress
Cypress is a front end automated testing application created for the modern web. Cypress is built on a new architecture and runs in the same run-loop as the application being tested. As a result Cypress provides better, faster, and more reliable testing for anything that runs in a browser. Cypress works on any front-end framework or website.
TestCafe
It is a pure node.js end-to-end solution for testing web apps. It takes care of all the stages: starting browsers, running tests, gathering test results and generating reports.
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.