playwright-core is a powerful library for browser automation and testing, designed to enable developers to write reliable end-to-end tests for web applications. It provides a high-level API to control headless browsers and supports multiple browser engines, including Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. Playwright is particularly known for its speed, reliability, and ability to handle modern web applications with complex interactions. While playwright-core is a robust choice for browser automation, there are several alternatives available in the ecosystem. Here are a few notable ones:

• puppeteer is a popular library developed by Google that provides a high-level API to control Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. Puppeteer is widely used for web scraping, automated testing, and generating screenshots or PDFs of web pages. It is particularly well-suited for projects that specifically target Chrome, offering a rich set of features and a straightforward API. However, it lacks support for other browsers, which may limit its use in cross-browser testing scenarios.
• selenium-webdriver is one of the oldest and most widely used browser automation frameworks. It supports multiple programming languages and can control various browsers, making it a versatile choice for testing across different environments. Selenium WebDriver is ideal for teams that require extensive cross-browser compatibility and have existing test suites built around Selenium. However, it can be more complex to set up and may have slower execution times compared to newer libraries like Playwright and Puppeteer.
• testcafe is a modern end-to-end testing framework that allows developers to write tests in JavaScript or TypeScript. It runs tests in any browser that supports JavaScript, and it does not require browser plugins or WebDriver. TestCafe is known for its ease of use, built-in support for asynchronous testing, and ability to run tests in parallel across multiple browsers. It is a great choice for teams looking for a straightforward testing solution without the overhead of managing browser drivers.

To explore how playwright-core compares with puppeteer, selenium-webdriver, and testcafe, check out the comparison: Comparing playwright-core vs puppeteer vs selenium-webdriver vs testcafe.