Playwright
Cross-browser automation by Microsoft
Selenium
The original cross-browser test framework
Selenium is the original cross-browser test framework — 20 years old, huge ecosystem, mandatory for legacy IE/old-Safari coverage. Playwright is modern, faster, has auto-wait, and doesn't need a separate driver. For new projects in 2026, Playwright wins on almost every axis except raw browser breadth.
Pick Playwright when you want speed, auto-wait, and modern DX on evergreen browsers.
Pick Selenium when you need legacy browsers, BrowserStack/Sauce grids, or existing team expertise.
| Feature | 🎭Playwright | 🧪Selenium | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Zero driver config | WebDriver per browser | A |
| Speed | Fast (CDP + WebKit) | Slower (W3C protocol) | A |
| Auto-wait | Built-in | Explicit WebDriverWait | A |
| Cross-browser | Chromium, FF, WebKit | Every browser ever | B |
| Cloud grid support | Growing | BrowserStack, Sauce Labs | B |
| Language bindings | TS/JS, Py, Java, .NET | Every major language | B |
| Debugging tools | Trace viewer, codegen | Basic | A |
| Community / age | 4+ years | 20+ years | B |
Setup
APlaywright
Zero driver config
Selenium
WebDriver per browser
Speed
APlaywright
Fast (CDP + WebKit)
Selenium
Slower (W3C protocol)
Auto-wait
APlaywright
Built-in
Selenium
Explicit WebDriverWait
Cross-browser
BPlaywright
Chromium, FF, WebKit
Selenium
Every browser ever
Cloud grid support
BPlaywright
Growing
Selenium
BrowserStack, Sauce Labs
Language bindings
BPlaywright
TS/JS, Py, Java, .NET
Selenium
Every major language
Debugging tools
APlaywright
Trace viewer, codegen
Selenium
Basic
Community / age
BPlaywright
4+ years
Selenium
20+ years
Best for
Best for
driver.findElement(By.css(...)) → page.locator(...). WebDriverWait explicit waits → remove (Playwright auto-waits). driver.quit() → test teardown fixtures. Cloud grids: many (BrowserStack, Sauce) now support Playwright natively. Rewrite test-by-test, start with your flakiest Selenium suites first.
Selenium is the original cross-browser test framework — 20 years old, huge ecosystem, mandatory for legacy IE/old-Safari coverage. Playwright is modern, faster, has auto-wait, and doesn't need a separate driver. For new projects in 2026, Playwright wins on almost every axis except raw browser breadth. In short: Playwright — Cross-browser automation by Microsoft. Selenium — The original cross-browser test framework.
Pick Playwright when you want speed, auto-wait, and modern DX on evergreen browsers.
Pick Selenium when you need legacy browsers, BrowserStack/Sauce grids, or existing team expertise.
driver.findElement(By.css(...)) → page.locator(...). WebDriverWait explicit waits → remove (Playwright auto-waits). driver.quit() → test teardown fixtures. Cloud grids: many (BrowserStack, Sauce) now support Playwright natively. Rewrite test-by-test, start with your flakiest Selenium suites first.
Yes. Both have MCP servers installable via MCPizy (mcpizy install playwright and mcpizy install selenium). They work identically across Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, and any other MCP-compatible client. You can install both side by side and route queries in your agent's prompt.
Playwright (Microsoft) is the spiritual successor to Puppeteer — same core team, but cross-browser (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit), better auto-wait, built-in test runner, and first-class language bindings. Puppeteer remains solid for Chrome-only scraping/automation, but Playwright is the default for new projects.
Cypress pioneered modern E2E DX (time-travel debugger, docs, VS Code-feel). Playwright caught up and surpassed on: cross-browser, multi-tab, iframe handling, parallelization, and API testing. Cypress still has the nicer 'first 30 minutes' experience; Playwright wins at scale.
Not truly competitors — BrowserStack is a real-device cloud (run your tests on 3000+ browser/OS combos including real iOS/Android), and Playwright is the test framework. Most teams use both: write tests in Playwright, run them on BrowserStack's grid for coverage they can't get locally.
Not sure? Run both side by side — swap between them in your AI agent with a single config line.