Playwright - a new player in the web automation arena

There are varied test automation tools on the market. Puppeteer, Selenium, Cypress, and Protractor, are traditionally considered to be the market leaders when it comes to web app testing. Still, now they have a new tough competitor represented by Playwright. Let’s try to shed light on this tool!

What is Playwright?

Playwright is a relatively new framework for accurate end-to-end testing of modern sophisticated web applications. What is important is that the framework is open-source.

The first version of Playwright appeared in January 2020. Since that time it has managed to grow in popularity.

In essence, in many ways, Playwright resembles Puppeteer. No wonder, while being owned by Microsoft, it has been created by the same team that worked on Puppeteer at Google. However, this time, developers had an aim to make a step further and develop a framework that would provide even more opportunities. The main among these opportunities is the ability of cross-browser testing. These days Playwright is the only of its kind framework supporting all modern browser engines.

Playwright can be effortlessly integrated with test runners based on JS like Jest, Mocha, and Ava. However, its own Folio-based test runner, Playwright Test, is also available.

At the core of Playwright lies the Browser-Context-Page concept. Let’s consider it step by step.

Browser: a browser is launched by means of an object of the browser class that, in fact, is a browser instance.

Context: A browser context can be defined as an isolated, independent environment within a browser instance. This approach enables parallelization. If Playwright Test is leveraged, each test scenario is run in its own context by default. Otherwise, it is possible to create a browser context manually. Additionally, several browser contexts can be created within a single scenario, which is helpful when it comes to testing multi-user functionality.

Page: This is a tab or a popup within a browser context. Each action executed by a test is on this object.

What is Playwright Automation

Playwright automation is the process of using the Playwright open-source tool to automate the testing of web applications. Playwright allows developers to write automated tests in JavaScript or TypeScript that simulate user interactions with web applications, such as clicking buttons, entering text, and navigating pages.

Playwright provides a range of features to support automation, including the ability to test web applications across multiple browsers, including Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. It also supports headless testing, which allows tests to be executed without opening a visible browser window, improving the speed and efficiency of the testing process.

Playwright automation can help to ensure the functionality and performance of web applications, detecting issues early in the development process and allowing developers to make necessary changes before releasing the application to production. By automating the testing process, Playwright can also save time and resources compared to manual testing, while providing more reliable and consistent results.

Overall, Playwright automation is a powerful and flexible way to test web applications, designed to make the testing process faster, more reliable, and more efficient.

Benefits of Playwright

Playwright has numerous advantages due to which even hardcore fans of Selenium or Puppeteer can be tempted to give it a try. So, let’s dive deeper and consider the numerous capabilities of this framework.

As you see, Playwright is a technology that indeed deserves attention. If you would like to go into the nitty-gritty, please have a look at the documentation on the official website.

Playwright Supported Browsers

One of the key features of Playwright is its ability to support multiple browsers, including Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. This means that developers can use Playwright to test their web applications across a variety of platforms, ensuring that they are functional and performant for users regardless of the browser they use.

Drawbacks of Playwright

No garden without its weeds. Thus, in spite of having a wide scope of merits, Playwright also has certain limitations. The main among them are:

Puppeteer vs Playwright

In summary, both Playwright and Puppeteer are great tools for automating web applications and scraping tasks, but they have some differences in their APIs, browser support, performance, debugging, and community support. Playwright is a newer tool with higher-level APIs, better multi-page app support, and faster event handling, while Puppeteer is a more mature tool with a larger community, extensive documentation, and more control over individual actions. Ultimately, the choice between the two will depend on your specific use case and preferences.

Playwright vs Cypress

In summary, both Playwright and Cypress are popular tools for testing web applications, but they have some differences in their APIs, browser support, performance, debugging, and community support. Playwright has higher-level APIs, better multi-page app support, and faster event handling, while Cypress has a built-in dashboard with time-travel features and supports a wider range of browsers. Ultimately, the choice between the two will depend on your specific use case and preferences.

Playwright vs Selenium

Conclusion

Playwright is a brand new solution for web testing offering awesome automation capabilities. With its help, it is possible to write fast, accurate, and reliable tests covering the most diverse scenarios. Since its recent inception, it has immensely evolved. Currently, the 71st release is available, and the development team is not going to stop. It may safely be said that Playwright will have a bright future. Our QA engineers provide automated testing with playwright