Playwright vs Selenium: A Comprehensive Comparison for QA Engineers

In the world of test automation, choosing the right framework is crucial for building an efficient and effective testing strategy. As a QA engineer with experience in both Playwright and Selenium, I want to share insights on how these frameworks compare and when you might choose one over the other.

Selenium: The Veteran

Selenium has been the industry standard for web automation for over a decade. Its widespread adoption means:

• Extensive community support
• Integration with virtually every CI/CD system
• Support for multiple programming languages (Java, Python, C#, JavaScript)
• Well-established patterns and practices

However, Selenium also comes with challenges:

• Limited built-in waiting mechanisms
• No native shadow DOM support
• Flaky tests, especially with dynamic content
• Browser driver management complexity

Playwright: The Modern Contender

Microsoft’s Playwright has quickly gained traction due to its modern features:

• Auto-waiting for elements to be ready
• Built-in network request interception
• Native support for multiple tabs, iframes, and shadow DOM
• Cross-browser support with a single API
• Simpler setup and installation

Let’s see a simple comparison of test code in both frameworks:

Selenium (JavaScript):

const { Builder, By, until } = require('selenium-webdriver');

async function runTest() {
  let driver = await new Builder().forBrowser('chrome').build();
  try {
    await driver.get('https://example.com');
    await driver.wait(until.elementLocated(By.css('.login-button')), 5000);
    await driver.findElement(By.css('.login-button')).click();
    await driver.wait(until.elementLocated(By.id('username')), 5000);
    await driver.findElement(By.id('username')).sendKeys('testuser');
    // More test steps...
  } finally {
    await driver.quit();
  }
}

Playwright (JavaScript):

const { chromium } = require('playwright');

async function runTest() {
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  try {
    await page.goto('https://example.com');
    await page.click('.login-button');
    await page.fill('#username', 'testuser');
    // More test steps...
  } finally {
    await browser.close();
  }
}

Performance Comparison

In my experience, Playwright tests run faster and more reliably than Selenium tests:

Metric	Playwright	Selenium
Test execution speed	~30-40% faster	Baseline
Flakiness	Significantly reduced	Can be high with dynamic content
Browser startup time	Faster	Slower
Memory usage	Lower	Higher

When to Choose Which Framework

Choose Selenium when:

• Your team is already heavily invested in Selenium knowledge and infrastructure
• You need to support legacy browsers (like IE)
• Language variety is crucial (especially Java, C#)
• You have extensive existing test suites

Choose Playwright when:

• Starting a new automation project
• You have modern web applications with complex UI
• You need reliable testing for dynamic content
• Speed and reliability are top priorities
• You’re working with a JavaScript/TypeScript stack

Conclusion

While Selenium remains a solid choice, particularly for teams with existing investment in the ecosystem, Playwright offers significant advantages for new projects, especially in terms of reliability, speed, and developer experience.

In my next post, I’ll show how to migrate a test suite from Selenium to Playwright step by step.