Playwright vs Puppeteer vs Selenium

In today’s fast-paced development landscape, automated browser testing and web scraping are more vital than ever. Three of the most prominent tools in this space are Selenium, Puppeteer, and Playwright. Each has its unique strengths and target use cases. In this post, we’ll explore how they stack up in terms of browser support, language options, performance, ease of use, and more.

However, for the most powerful and reliable option, Playwright is the best of the three.

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Supported Browsers
  3. Language Support
  4. Key Features
  5. Performance & Reliability
  6. Ease of Use
  7. When to Choose Each Tool
  8. Conclusion

Overview

Tool Description Primary Use Cases
Selenium One of the oldest and most widely used frameworks for cross-browser testing. It automates browsers via the WebDriver protocol. Traditional E2E testing in large, legacy, or multi-language projects.
Puppeteer A Node.js library providing a high-level API to control Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge), developed by the Chrome DevTools team at Google. Fast, headless browser automation for Chrome/Chromium, often used in CI/CD pipelines.
Playwright A newer cross-browser automation tool from Microsoft, supporting Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit under one unified API. Modern E2E testing with parallel execution, auto-waiting, and a robust feature set.

Supported Browsers

  • Selenium
    • Officially supports Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and even Internet Explorer (via individual WebDriver executables).
    • Excellent for legacy browser coverage in enterprise environments.
  • Puppeteer
    • Primarily designed for Chromium (Chrome, Edge).
    • Has experimental Firefox support, but it’s not as mature or complete.
  • Playwright
    • Provides native support for Chromium (Chrome, Edge), Firefox, and WebKit (Safari-like) using a single, consistent API.
    • Simplifies cross-browser coverage significantly.

Language Support

  • Selenium
    • Offers multi-language support (Java, Python, C#, Ruby, JavaScript, etc.) via WebDriver.
    • Large ecosystem, extensive community-driven documentation in each language.
  • Puppeteer
    • Node.js only (JavaScript/TypeScript).
    • Great for teams already using Node-based tooling.
  • Playwright
    • Officially supports JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, .NET, and Java.
    • Continues to expand documentation and community support across all these languages.

Key Features

Selenium

  • Mature ecosystem with many integrations (e.g., Selenium Grid for parallelization).
  • Works with older browsers and suits enterprise contexts.
  • Can be more verbose, requiring manual waits or condition checks.

Puppeteer

  • Fast, high-level API for controlling Chromium-based browsers.
  • Ideal for headless operations (CI, scraping, PDF generation).
  • Straightforward network interception, DOM manipulation, and screenshot/PDF features.

Playwright

  • Cross-browser out of the box: Chromium, Firefox, WebKit.
  • “Batteries-included” approach, especially in JavaScript/TypeScript with the @playwright/test runner.
  • Rich debugging features: auto-wait, screenshots, video recording, parallelization, and tracing.

Performance & Reliability

  • Selenium
    • Interacts with browsers via the WebDriver protocol, which can be slower compared to direct DevTools connections.
    • Generally stable but can become flaky if not carefully managed with explicit waits or synchronization.
  • Puppeteer
    • Uses the DevTools Protocol for direct communication with Chromium, enabling faster and more reliable actions.
    • Chrome/Chromium-specific focus can be a limitation if you need broader coverage.
  • Playwright
    • Similar to Puppeteer for Chromium but also implements low-level integrations for Firefox and WebKit.
    • Auto-wait for elements reduces flakiness; the built-in test runner supports concurrency with minimal setup.

Ease of Use

  • Selenium
    • Requires more boilerplate (e.g., driver management).
    • Extremely large community and many add-on frameworks, but this can mean a steeper learning curve compared to modern “batteries-included” solutions.
  • Puppeteer
    • Straightforward API for Chrome/Chromium automation.
    • Good fit if you only need one browser and prefer a simpler Node.js library.
  • Playwright
    • “Everything you need” out of the box (in JS/TS, the @playwright/test framework includes parallel tests, advanced debugging, and more).
    • Modern design handles common flakiness issues and concurrency with minimal extra code.

When to Choose Each Tool

  1. Selenium
    • You need the widest browser coverage, including older browsers like Internet Explorer 11.
    • Large or enterprise environments already heavily invested in Selenium.
    • You appreciate its mature ecosystem and the ability to use virtually any programming language.
  2. Puppeteer
    • You only require Chrome/Chromium and/or want a minimal overhead for headless testing or web scraping.
    • You’re a Node.js user seeking a straightforward library with direct DevTools integration.
    • Ideal for simpler workflows where cross-browser coverage isn’t a priority.
  3. Playwright
    • You want a single modern API that covers Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit.
    • You value built-in features like auto-wait, parallelization, and full-page screenshots/traces without extra dependencies.
    • You’re starting a new project and want a modern, robust approach that helps prevent flaky tests.

My favorite: Playwright

Since its launch, Playwright has evolved to become a comprehensive automation solution.

Built with a more modern architecture, it works across Chrome, Firefox, and Safari browsers, solving a plethora of issues that arose with other contemporaries like Puppeteer and Selenium.

One of the main benefits of Playwright is its simple syntax with powerful abstractions behind the scenes. This lets users write tests that look like real user actions. These actions happen when using a web application. This means that the code is not only easier to read and understand but also more maintainable over time. Developers can easily understand the purpose of the code. This makes it simpler to work with team members or help new developers join.

A code example of how Playwright works:

// Playwright

import { chromium } from 'playwright';

(async () => {
  // Launch the browser instead of connecting to BrowserBase
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  
  // Create a new context (equivalent to an incognito window)
  const context = await browser.newContext();
  
  // Create a new page in the context
  const page = await context.newPage();
  
  // Navigate to the website
  await page.goto('https://browserbase.com/');
  
  // Close the page
  await page.close();
  
  // Close the browser
  await browser.close();
})().catch((error) => console.error(error.message));

As you can see, the playwright code is more straightforward than any other framework.