Which is Better Web Automation Libraries?
playwright vs puppeteer vs selenium-webdriver

1 Year
playwrightpuppeteerselenium-webdriverSimilar Packages:
What's Web Automation Libraries?

Web automation libraries are tools used for automating web browser interactions, such as filling out forms, clicking buttons, and navigating through web pages. They are commonly used for testing web applications, web scraping, and automating repetitive tasks. These libraries provide APIs to control browsers programmatically and simulate user interactions.

NPM Package Downloads Trend
Github Stars Ranking
Stat Detail
Package
Downloads
Stars
Size
Issues
Publish
License
playwright5,964,59263,6163.05 MB7035 days agoApache-2.0
puppeteer3,797,41187,571339 kB2863 days agoApache-2.0
selenium-webdriver1,759,24829,72918 MB2089 days agoApache-2.0
Feature Comparison: playwright vs puppeteer vs selenium-webdriver

Browser Support

  • playwright: Playwright supports multiple browsers (Chrome, Firefox, WebKit) out of the box, allowing you to run tests on different browsers with the same codebase. It provides a consistent API for interacting with different browsers, making cross-browser testing easier.
  • puppeteer: Puppeteer is primarily focused on Chrome and Chromium browsers. While it can be used with other browsers through extensions like puppeteer-firefox, its main strength lies in automating tasks in Chrome-based browsers.
  • selenium-webdriver: Selenium WebDriver has broad browser support, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and more. It is known for its compatibility with various browsers and versions, making it a reliable choice for cross-browser testing.

Community Support

  • playwright: Playwright has a growing community and active development, with regular updates and new features being added. It is backed by Microsoft and has good documentation and support resources available.
  • puppeteer: Puppeteer has a strong community of users and contributors, providing helpful resources, tutorials, and libraries. It is widely used for web scraping and testing, with many code examples and solutions available online.
  • selenium-webdriver: Selenium WebDriver has a large and established community of users, with extensive documentation, forums, and resources. It is widely adopted in the industry and has a wealth of third-party tools and plugins available.

Performance

  • playwright: Playwright is known for its speed and performance, offering fast execution of automation scripts and efficient handling of browser interactions. It uses a modern architecture that enables parallel execution and reduces flakiness in tests.
  • puppeteer: Puppeteer provides good performance for tasks like taking screenshots, generating PDFs, and scraping data. It is lightweight and efficient for automating tasks in Chrome, making it a popular choice for simple automation tasks.
  • selenium-webdriver: Selenium WebDriver's performance can vary depending on the browser and test setup. It may have slower execution times compared to Playwright and Puppeteer in certain scenarios, but it offers robust capabilities for complex automation tasks.

Flexibility

  • playwright: Playwright offers flexibility in terms of browser support, advanced features, and cross-browser testing capabilities. It allows you to write expressive and concise automation scripts with built-in features like automatic waiting, network interception, and page objects.
  • puppeteer: Puppeteer is straightforward and easy to use, making it ideal for quick automation tasks and prototyping. It provides a simple API for interacting with the Chrome DevTools Protocol and offers features like headless mode, screenshots, and PDF generation.
  • selenium-webdriver: Selenium WebDriver provides flexibility through its support for multiple programming languages and browsers. It allows you to write tests in your preferred language and run them on different browsers, making it suitable for diverse automation needs.

Ease of Use

  • playwright: Playwright is designed for ease of use with a focus on developer productivity. It offers a clean and intuitive API that simplifies browser automation tasks and reduces the complexity of writing and maintaining test scripts.
  • puppeteer: Puppeteer is beginner-friendly and easy to get started with, especially for developers familiar with JavaScript. It provides a high-level API for common automation tasks and offers good debugging capabilities through the Chrome DevTools Protocol.
  • selenium-webdriver: Selenium WebDriver can have a steeper learning curve compared to Playwright and Puppeteer, especially for beginners. It requires setting up a WebDriver server and managing browser drivers, which adds complexity to the automation setup.
How to Choose: playwright vs puppeteer vs selenium-webdriver
  • playwright: Choose Playwright if you need a modern and versatile automation tool that supports multiple browsers (Chrome, Firefox, WebKit) and provides a unified API for cross-browser testing. Playwright offers fast execution, reliable automation, and advanced features like automatic waiting for elements, network interception, and video recording.
  • puppeteer: Choose Puppeteer if you are primarily working with Chrome or Chromium browsers and need a simple and easy-to-use library for browser automation. Puppeteer is well-suited for tasks like taking screenshots, generating PDFs, and scraping data from websites. It also has a strong community and good documentation.
  • selenium-webdriver: Choose Selenium WebDriver if you require a widely adopted and established automation framework that supports multiple programming languages (Java, Python, JavaScript, etc.) and browsers. Selenium WebDriver is a mature tool with extensive browser compatibility and a large user base.
Similar Npm Packages to playwright

playwright is a Node.js library for automating browsers. It provides a high-level API for automating Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit browsers, allowing developers to perform tasks such as UI testing, web scraping, and browser automation. Playwright offers a range of features and capabilities for interacting with web pages and applications.

While playwright is a powerful tool for browser automation, there are other libraries in the Node.js ecosystem that provide similar capabilities. Here are a few alternatives:

  • puppeteer is a Node.js library that provides a high-level API for controlling headless Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. It is commonly used for tasks such as web scraping, automated testing, and generating screenshots of web pages.
  • selenium-webdriver is a browser automation library that allows you to control web browsers using a programming interface. It supports multiple programming languages and browsers, making it a versatile choice for browser automation tasks.

Check out this comparison: Comparing playwright vs puppeteer vs selenium-webdriver.

README for playwright

🎭 Playwright

npm version Chromium version Firefox version WebKit version

Documentation | API reference

Playwright is a framework for Web Testing and Automation. It allows testing Chromium, Firefox and WebKit with a single API. Playwright is built to enable cross-browser web automation that is ever-green, capable, reliable and fast.

LinuxmacOSWindows
Chromium 127.0.6533.17:white_check_mark::white_check_mark::white_check_mark:
WebKit 17.4:white_check_mark::white_check_mark::white_check_mark:
Firefox 127.0:white_check_mark::white_check_mark::white_check_mark:

Headless execution is supported for all browsers on all platforms. Check out system requirements for details.

Looking for Playwright for Python, .NET, or Java?

Installation

Playwright has its own test runner for end-to-end tests, we call it Playwright Test.

Using init command

The easiest way to get started with Playwright Test is to run the init command.

# Run from your project's root directory
npm init playwright@latest
# Or create a new project
npm init playwright@latest new-project

This will create a configuration file, optionally add examples, a GitHub Action workflow and a first test example.spec.ts. You can now jump directly to writing assertions section.

Manually

Add dependency and install browsers.

npm i -D @playwright/test
# install supported browsers
npx playwright install

You can optionally install only selected browsers, see install browsers for more details. Or you can install no browsers at all and use existing browser channels.

Capabilities

Resilient • No flaky tests

Auto-wait. Playwright waits for elements to be actionable prior to performing actions. It also has a rich set of introspection events. The combination of the two eliminates the need for artificial timeouts - a primary cause of flaky tests.

Web-first assertions. Playwright assertions are created specifically for the dynamic web. Checks are automatically retried until the necessary conditions are met.

Tracing. Configure test retry strategy, capture execution trace, videos and screenshots to eliminate flakes.

No trade-offs • No limits

Browsers run web content belonging to different origins in different processes. Playwright is aligned with the architecture of the modern browsers and runs tests out-of-process. This makes Playwright free of the typical in-process test runner limitations.

Multiple everything. Test scenarios that span multiple tabs, multiple origins and multiple users. Create scenarios with different contexts for different users and run them against your server, all in one test.

Trusted events. Hover elements, interact with dynamic controls and produce trusted events. Playwright uses real browser input pipeline indistinguishable from the real user.

Test frames, pierce Shadow DOM. Playwright selectors pierce shadow DOM and allow entering frames seamlessly.

Full isolation • Fast execution

Browser contexts. Playwright creates a browser context for each test. Browser context is equivalent to a brand new browser profile. This delivers full test isolation with zero overhead. Creating a new browser context only takes a handful of milliseconds.

Log in once. Save the authentication state of the context and reuse it in all the tests. This bypasses repetitive log-in operations in each test, yet delivers full isolation of independent tests.

Powerful Tooling

Codegen. Generate tests by recording your actions. Save them into any language.

Playwright inspector. Inspect page, generate selectors, step through the test execution, see click points and explore execution logs.

Trace Viewer. Capture all the information to investigate the test failure. Playwright trace contains test execution screencast, live DOM snapshots, action explorer, test source and many more.

Looking for Playwright for TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, .NET, or Java?

Examples

To learn how to run these Playwright Test examples, check out our getting started docs.

Page screenshot

This code snippet navigates to Playwright homepage and saves a screenshot.

import { test } from '@playwright/test';

test('Page Screenshot', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://playwright.dev/');
  await page.screenshot({ path: `example.png` });
});

Mobile and geolocation

This snippet emulates Mobile Safari on a device at given geolocation, navigates to maps.google.com, performs the action and takes a screenshot.

import { test, devices } from '@playwright/test';

test.use({
  ...devices['iPhone 13 Pro'],
  locale: 'en-US',
  geolocation: { longitude: 12.492507, latitude: 41.889938 },
  permissions: ['geolocation'],
})

test('Mobile and geolocation', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://maps.google.com');
  await page.getByText('Your location').click();
  await page.waitForRequest(/.*preview\/pwa/);
  await page.screenshot({ path: 'colosseum-iphone.png' });
});

Evaluate in browser context

This code snippet navigates to example.com, and executes a script in the page context.

import { test } from '@playwright/test';

test('Evaluate in browser context', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://www.example.com/');
  const dimensions = await page.evaluate(() => {
    return {
      width: document.documentElement.clientWidth,
      height: document.documentElement.clientHeight,
      deviceScaleFactor: window.devicePixelRatio
    }
  });
  console.log(dimensions);
});

Intercept network requests

This code snippet sets up request routing for a page to log all network requests.

import { test } from '@playwright/test';

test('Intercept network requests', async ({ page }) => {
  // Log and continue all network requests
  await page.route('**', route => {
    console.log(route.request().url());
    route.continue();
  });
  await page.goto('http://todomvc.com');
});

Resources