Playwright vs puppeteer

Struggling to choose between Playwright and puppeteer? Both products offer unique advantages, making it a tough decision.

Playwright is a Development solution with tags like automation, testing, web-applications.

It boasts features such as Cross-browser testing, Headless testing, Automatic waiting, Screenshots and videos, Network mocking, Geolocation and permissions, Tracing and debugging and pros including Supports multiple browsers, Fast and reliable, Easy to learn, Open source, Good documentation.

On the other hand, puppeteer is a Development product tagged with automation, testing, headless, browser, chromium, nodejs.

Its standout features include Headless Chrome/Chromium automation, Page screenshot capturing, PDF generation, Crawls pages, Executes JavaScript, Intercepts network requests, Emulate devices, Sandboxed execution, and it shines with pros like Powerful API for browser automation, Runs in a headless environment, Fast and lightweight, Built on top of DevTools Protocol, Supports latest Chrome features, Open source and free.

To help you make an informed decision, we've compiled a comprehensive comparison of these two products, delving into their features, pros, cons, pricing, and more. Get ready to explore the nuances that set them apart and determine which one is the perfect fit for your requirements.

Playwright

Playwright

Playwright is an open-source web testing framework developed by Microsoft. It allows for end-to-end testing of web applications by automating browser interactions like a real user. Playwright supports multiple browsers including Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

Categories:
Development Testing
automation testing web-applications

Playwright Features

  1. Cross-browser testing
  2. Headless testing
  3. Automatic waiting
  4. Screenshots and videos
  5. Network mocking
  6. Geolocation and permissions
  7. Tracing and debugging

Pricing

  • Open Source
  • Free

Pros

Supports multiple browsers

Fast and reliable

Easy to learn

Open source

Good documentation

Cons

Still new and evolving

Limited reporting capabilities

Incomplete support for mobile browsers

puppeteer

puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node.js library developed by Google which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. It allows developers to automate browser testing and scraping tasks.

Categories:
Development Web Scraping
automation testing headless browser chromium nodejs

Puppeteer Features

  1. Headless Chrome/Chromium automation
  2. Page screenshot capturing
  3. PDF generation
  4. Crawls pages
  5. Executes JavaScript
  6. Intercepts network requests
  7. Emulate devices
  8. Sandboxed execution

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Powerful API for browser automation

Runs in a headless environment

Fast and lightweight

Built on top of DevTools Protocol

Supports latest Chrome features

Open source and free

Cons

Requires basic Node.js knowledge

Headless only, no visible UI

Limited to Chromium-based browsers

Steep learning curve for advanced usage

Requires managing browser lifecycle