Playwright is an open-source automation tool and framework developed by Microsoft in 2020. It is freely available, with its source code hosted on GitHub, allowing developers to contribute and customize. Built on Node.js, Playwright requires a JavaScript runtime environment to execute scripts, much like Selenium relies on JRE for Java-based scripts.
Designed for end-to-end (E2E) testing, Playwright provides comprehensive automation for web browsers, APIs, and mobile web applications. Unlike Selenium, which is primarily a library that relies on external frameworks like TestNG or JUnit for comprehensive testing, Playwright serves as both a library and a framework, providing built-in features that make automation seamless, reliable, and efficient.
Key features
Cross-browser testing: Playwright supports multiple browsers, including Chromium (Chrome, Edge), Firefox, and WebKit (Safari)
Cross-platform support: Playwright scripts can be created and executed on Windows, macOS, and Linux
Multi-language support: Playwright supports several programming languages, including Nodejs (JavaScript and TypeScript), Python, Java, C#(.NET)
Mobile web testing: Playwright excels at automating mobile web browsers, such as Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS.
API testing: Playwright provides a dedicated API for testing REST APIs, allowing users to send HTTP requests and verify responses. (Not in selenium)
Auto-wait mechanism: Playwright automatically waits for elements before acting, making tests more reliable. It waits up to 30 seconds by default, but you can change this timeout.
Parallel execution: Playwright supports running tests simultaneously across multiple browsers.
Built-in reporting: Playwright offers built-in reporting capabilities, including HTML, JSON, and JUnit reports.
Playwright vs. Selenium
Selenium has long been a popular and mature tool for browser automation, supported by a large community and ecosystem. However, Playwright introduces modern features that address many of Selenium’s limitations.
Built-in framework: Playwright comes with a built-in testing framework, removing the need for external tools like TestNG or JUnit.
Advanced features: Provides support for API testing, mobile web automation, and auto wait mechanisms, which Selenium lacks natively.
Modern web support: Handles shadow DOM, iframes, and single-page applications (SPAs) more effectively.
Built-in tools: Includes Inspector, Codegen, and Trace Viewer for debugging and script generation without extra setup.
That said, Selenium remains highly relevant due to its long-standing presence, broad language support, and extensive community resources. It remains widely used and is expected to continue in practice for several more years, particularly in legacy projects.
Why Choose TypeScript for Playwright?
Playwright supports multiple languages, but TypeScript is often recommended due to its advantages over JavaScript and other languages. Both Playwright and TypeScript are developed by Microsoft.
What is TypeScript?
TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, meaning it includes all JavaScript features plus additional capabilities.
Key Differences Between JavaScript and TypeScript
For example, let age = 30, which can later be reassigned to a string (age = "thirty") without errors.
For example, let age: number = 30
Attempting to assign a string to the age variable results in a compilation error, thereby improving code reliability.
Getting started with Playwright
To begin using Playwright, you need to set up a Node.js environment, as it is a prerequisite for running JavaScript or TypeScript scripts. The setup process includes.
Installing Node.js: A cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment.
Installing Playwright: Using npm (Node Package Manager) to add Playwright to your project.
Choosing an IDE: Visual Studio Code is recommended for its support of TypeScript and integration with Playwright tools.
Writing Scripts: Use TypeScript to write test cases, leveraging Playwright’s API for browser automation, API testing, and more.
Conclusion
Playwright stands out as a robust and flexible automation tool, outpacing more conventional automation tools such as Selenium in mobile web testing, API testing, and features like built-in auto wait, inspector, codegen, and trace viewer. With support for TypeScript, it becomes even more suitable for contemporary automation projects due to its static typing and scalability as well as its ties to Microsoft. By mastering both Playwright and TypeScript, QA engineers and SDETs can enhance their automation testing expertise, ensuring that their automation testing skills remain relevant and resilient to shifts in industry demand.