In this article, we’ll dive deep into the Playwright vs Selenium debate, comparing their features, performance, ease of use, and more.

1. Overview

Playwright

• Released: 2019
• Developed by: Microsoft
• Supported Browsers: Chromium, Firefox, WebKit
• Key Strengths: High performance, fast setup, native support for modern web features, headless testing, and cross-browser testing.

Selenium

• Released: 2004
• Developed by: Open-source community (primarily managed by the Selenium Project)
• Supported Browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Edge, Opera (via browser drivers)
• Key Strengths: Extensive community support, mature ecosystem, compatibility with different browsers and programming languages.

2. Installation and Setup

Playwright

Playwright comes with its own bundled browser binaries (Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit), so when you install it, it automatically installs the necessary browser drivers. Once installed, Playwright makes it simple to launch the browsers with one line of code.

Selenium

Selenium requires the installation of browser-specific drivers (e.g., ChromeDriver for Chrome, GeckoDriver for Firefox) that must be matched with the browser version you’re using. Selenium also requires more configuration for managing browser drivers, and you often need to ensure that the appropriate version of each driver is installed.

Verdict: Playwright wins for ease of setup because it automatically installs the necessary browser binaries and reduces the configuration overhead.

3. Cross-Browser Testing

Playwright

Playwright provides native support for running tests across Chromium, WebKit, and Firefox, and it allows you to run tests concurrently across multiple browsers. This feature ensures that your tests can be executed in a cross-browser environment without much configuration.

• WebKit (Safari) support is a unique feature in Playwright that Selenium does not support natively.
• Playwright can run tests in headless mode across all supported browsers.

Selenium

Selenium supports all major browsers through browser-specific drivers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Internet Explorer. However, it lacks native support for WebKit (Safari), and integrating certain browsers like Safari requires manual setup.

• Cross-browser testing in Selenium is widely supported but requires configuring and maintaining browser drivers separately.

Verdict: Playwright offers better cross-browser support and native headless capabilities for all supported browsers, making it the more efficient option for cross-browser testing.

4. Performance

Playwright

Playwright is designed with modern web applications in mind, providing faster execution compared to Selenium. It works at a lower level by interacting directly with the browser’s DevTools protocol, which provides faster and more reliable tests.

• Playwright is faster than Selenium, especially for scenarios requiring multiple concurrent tests or complex web interactions.
• It offers parallel test execution and headless browser support, which contributes to faster execution.

Selenium

Selenium is known for being slower because it communicates with the browser via the WebDriver API, which is based on HTTP requests and is inherently slower compared to Playwright’s DevTools protocol.

• Selenium can be slower in cases involving large test suites or extensive browser interactions due to its reliance on the WebDriver API.

Verdict: Playwright offers better performance, especially for modern web apps and large-scale test suites.

5. Feature Set

Playwright

Playwright comes with many modern features designed for today’s web applications, including:

• Headless Testing: Supports running tests in headless mode for faster execution.
• Network Interception: Playwright allows you to intercept network requests and modify responses, which is crucial for testing things like API calls or handling third-party services.
• Auto-Waiting: Playwright waits automatically for elements to be available before interacting with them, which reduces the need for explicit waits.
• Browser Contexts: Playwright allows you to simulate multiple users in a single instance by using browser contexts, making it ideal for testing scenarios like authentication or multi-tab interactions.
• Multiple Tabs: Playwright allows you to easily interact with multiple tabs within a single browser instance.

Selenium

Selenium offers the basic functionality of browser automation, but it lacks some of the modern features that Playwright provides, such as:

• Automatic waiting: Selenium doesn’t automatically wait for elements to become available, requiring developers to use explicit waits.
• Network interception: Network interception is only possible in Selenium through additional tools or plugins, making it less seamless than in Playwright.
• Multiple Tabs: Selenium allows interaction with multiple tabs but with more complex workarounds.

Verdict: Playwright provides more advanced, built-in features, making it more suitable for testing modern web applications.

6. Language Support

Playwright

Playwright supports JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#, and Java. It has extensive support for JavaScript/TypeScript, which are the most common languages in web development today.

Selenium

Selenium supports Java, Python, JavaScript, C#, Ruby, Kotlin, and other languages. Selenium has been around longer and has broad language support, but it’s often more cumbersome to set up with non-JavaScript languages.

Verdict: Selenium has broader language support, especially for languages like Ruby, Kotlin, and others, but Playwright’s support for JavaScript/TypeScript and Python is excellent.

7. Community and Ecosystem

Playwright

Playwright is a relatively new tool, but it is rapidly gaining popularity, especially due to its strong performance and ease of use. Being developed by Microsoft gives it a strong backing, and it has quickly gained a supportive community and good documentation.

Selenium

Selenium is one of the most widely used testing frameworks with a massive community and a long track record. It has a vast ecosystem of plugins, tools, and integrations and is supported by almost every testing tool in the market. Selenium also has a rich repository of tutorials and resources.

Verdict: Selenium has a larger, more established community, but Playwright is quickly catching up with strong support from Microsoft and an enthusiastic user base.

8. CI/CD Integration

Playwright

Playwright integrates easily into CI/CD pipelines with out-of-the-box support for platforms like GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, etc. Since it’s optimized for fast execution, it works well in continuous testing environments.

Selenium

Selenium also integrates well with CI/CD pipelines, and it’s supported by most CI tools. However, it may require more configuration (due to external drivers) and can be slower, which might affect the overall build time in large test suites.

Verdict: Both Playwright and Selenium integrate well with CI/CD tools, but Playwright may offer an advantage in faster test execution and simpler setup.

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Final Verdict: Playwright vs Selenium

Feature	Playwright	Selenium
Performance	Faster, modern architecture	Slower, WebDriver-based
Cross-browser Support	Chromium, Firefox, WebKit	Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge
Ease of Setup	Easy, automatic browser install	Requires separate driver setups
Feature Set	Headless, auto-waiting, network interception, multiple contexts	Basic functionality, limited built-in features
Community	Growing quickly, backed by Microsoft	Large, established community
Language Support	JS/TS, Python, C#, Java	Java, Python, JS, C#, Ruby
CI/CD Integration	Seamless, faster execution	Widely supported, but slower

Which One Should You Choose?

• Go with Playwright if you need modern features, faster execution, native cross-browser support, and seamless integration with modern web testing practices.
• Go with Selenium if you require broader language support, compatibility with a wide variety of browsers (including legacy ones), or if you are working within an ecosystem that relies heavily on Selenium.

In most cases, especially for modern web applications, Playwright is the better choice due to its speed, features, and ease of use. However, Selenium remains a reliable tool for established, complex environments with a need for extensive community support.

If you would rather have a professional team do the heavy lifting for you, or have any questions please feel free to contact Team Brookvale here.