Difference between Playwright and Selenium

Automation of web browser interactions is crucial for building and testing real-time applications. Playwright and Selenium are the most popular choices for web automation. While both serve the same fundamental process, they come with distinct features. This article focuses on discussing the differences between Playwright and Selenium.

What is a Playwright?

Playwright, developed by Microsoft, is an open-source web automation framework that provides a high-level API control and is compactable with many browsers such as Chromium, Firefox, etc. It is often used for web testing, scraping, and other browser-related actions.

Advantages of Playwright

1. Cross-browser support: Playwright is used for API controlling and is compatible with many browsers which means that we can write automation scripts that work for different browsers with minimal changes.
2. Programming language support: Playwright supports various programming languages and provides APIs for them including Java, Python, JavaScript, C#, etc. This helps developers in different language ecosystems to easily access the features of Playwright.
3. High-level API: Playwright reduces the amount of boilerplate code by offering high-level user-friendly API for web automation. Common tasks like navigating through pages, Interacting and Integrating web components, etc can be carried out with the help of easy-to-use methods.
4. Headful and Headless modes: Playwright allows us to run browser automation in both modes. i.e. Headful and Headless modes. The Headful methodbehaviour method runs to show the browser’s GUI which provides a user-friendly experience, debugging, and visual inspection. The headless mode runs the browser in the background without GUI making it suitable for server-side actions.
5. Mobile support: The Playwright also supports mobile browser automation on Android and IOS.

Limitations of Playwright

1. Limited Browser Support: Playwright’s browser support is not universal. For some specific browsers, there is a need for an extra workaround.
2. Limited Operating System Support: Playwright is primarily designed for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It might not support other operating systems.
3. Lower Adoption Rate: Playwright is not as much adopted as other third-party libraries and extensions like Selenium.
4. Longer Learning Curve: Its high-level API and advanced features may have a steep learning curve for beginners compared to simpler automation tools.

What is Selenium?

Selenium is an open-source suite for web browser automation. It comprises various components and allows testers and developers to write scripts that can control web browsers, interact with web elements, and perform various tasks on web applications.

Advantages of Selenium

• Selenium WebDriver: Selenium web driver is the core component of selenium. It is a set of APIs and libraries that provide a programmatic interface for automating web browser interactions. The communication with the browser will happen, through the browser-specific drivers, native support, and automation protocols.
• Browser automation: Selenium provides a way to automate various browser actions such as interacting with web elements, capturing screenshots, navigating through web pages, handling alerts and pop-ups, managing windows and tabs, etc.
• Testing framework integration: Selenium can be integrated with various testing frameworks such as JUnit, TestNG, rPyUnit, etc in order to create structured and repeatable test suites.
• Browser compatibility: Selenium supports various browsers including Chromium, firefox, edge, safari, etc. This allows us to write scripts that work across different browsers.
• Programming language support: Selenium provides accessibility to developers working in different language ecosystems including Java, Python, Ruby, etc.

Limitations of Selenium

• Dependency on Browser-Specific Drivers: Selenium relies on browser-specific drivers which may cause inconsistencies and platform-specific issues.
• Performance Issues: The performance of the selenium tests varies based on the web drivers used for specific browsers.
• Lesser Stability: Selenium tests may encounter stability issues like unexpected browser crashes and flaky tests especially while working with heavy-load languages.
• Difficulties in handling pop-ups: Handling pop-ups and alerts can be tricky when their behaviour method is unpredictable and inconsistent across different browsers.

Plawright vs Selenium

Parameters	Playwright	Selenium
High-level API	Playwright provides a high-level API for easier web browser automation.	Selenium relies on WebDriver API for web browser automation.
Responsive Testing & Device Emulation	It provides responsive testing by enabling the emulation of various devices.	It is often limited in capabilities to provide responsive testing by emulation of devices.
Performance & Stability	Playwright enables strong interaction with browsers and is known for its performance and stability.	The performance and stability of Selenium tests are inconsistent and depend on browser and driver used.
Network Interception	It provides network interception for request/response manipulation.	It has limited support for network interception.
File Handling	It has built-in support for file uploads and downloads. No need for additional workaround.	It doesn’t provide any built-in support for file handling. May requires additional steps.
Mobile Browser Automation	It supports the automation of mobile browsers on Android and iOS	It has limited support for mobile browser automation
Community & Support	The playwright has a growing community and support from Microsoft.	Selenium is a widely adopted framework and has a large community.
Browser Support	Playwright has extensive support for all kind of browsers. Example: Chrome, webkit, Firefox etc.	Selenium has limited support for all kind of browsers. Examples: Safari, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, etc
Programming language support	Playwright supports programming languages like C#, Python, Java, JavaScript	Selenium supports programming languages like C#, Python, Ruby, JavaScript(Node.js version), Java
Mobile device support	Playwright provides mobile device support for Android and IOS.	Selenium provides mobile device support with the help of Appium.
Operating System support	Playwright supports Operating Systems like Windows, MacOS, Linux.	Playwright supports Operating Systems like Windows, MacOS, Linux.
Compactible Architecture	Playwright supports 32-bit and 64-bit architechture.	Selenium supports 32-bit and 64-bit architechture.

Conclusion

Playwright’s modern features and excellent performance make it a strong contender, but Selenium’s long-standing reputation and adaptability still hold a valuable place in the world of web automation. The choice between these depends on organization’s structure, specific needs, preferences and tasks which need be automated.