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Introduction

In modern software development, Automated testing is crucial in ensuring quality and reliability by helping teams while maintaining rapid development cycles. The most popular frameworks for browser automation are Playwright and Selenium. In this article, let’s compare Playwright vs Selenium based on performance, ease of use, browser support and use cases to determine the best choice in 2025.

Overview of Playwright and Selenium

Playwright is a modern Microsoft automation framework that provides fast, reliable, and powerful browser automation capabilities. It supports Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit with a single API. Playwright is widely adopted for its speed and rich feature set, including:

  • Auto-waiting
  • Network interception
  • Headless testing.

Selenium is an evergreen, well-established open-source browser automation framework. Selenium WebDriver allows you to automate browsers across different operating systems and supports multiple programming languages. The new features of selenium such as better DevTools integration and relative locators have improved the experience.

Comparison: Playwright vs Selenium in 2025

Feature Playwright Selenium
Performance Faster execution and parallel testing. Slower due to older architecture and additional overhead
Ease of Use More intuitive API, built-in auto-waiting Requires explicit waits
Language Support JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Java, C# Java, Python, JavaScript, C#, Ruby
Browser Support Chromium, Firefox, WebKit (Safari) Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, Internet Explorer
Headless Mode Built-in and optimized Supported but often slower
Mobile Testing Supports mobile emulation Uses Appium for mobile automation
Parallel Execution Native parallelism with workers Requires Selenium Grid
Network Interception Supports intercepting network requests Limited support
Ecosystem & Community Growing rapidly Large, mature ecosystem
Use Cases Best for modern web apps, high-performance automation, and API testing Best for cross-browser testing and legacy web apps

Performance and ease of use

Playwright is faster in executing tests when compared to Selenium because of its single WebSocket connection for communication and parallel execution instead of a client-server model. Selenium WebDriver operates with a multi-layered architecture and selenium grid, which makes it slower.

Playwright is easier to use by providing auto-waiting which significantly reduces flaky tests. Selenium, on the other hand, requires explicit waits and handling of exceptions like StaleElementReferenceException, makes it more cumbersome.

Browser Support and Mobile Testing:

Selenium supports more browsers whereas Playwright focuses on modern browsers like Chromium, Firefox, WebKit. If you need cross-browser testing for older browsers, Selenium is still the best choice and suitable for legacy browser support.

Playwright supports mobile emulation directly and Selenium relies on Appium for mobile testing with additional setup. For mobile testing, Appium is still the go-to tool and for full-fledged mobile automation, Selenium via Appium is better. But for mobile emulation, Playwright is easier.

Network Interception and API Testing

Playwright is suitable for API testing and network interception when compared with selenium. It has built-in network request interception capabilities that allows to:

  • Mock responses
  • Modify requests
  • Monitor network traffic

Use Cases: When to Choose Playwright vs Selenium?

Use Case Best Choice
UI testing Playwright
Cross-browser testing Selenium
Testing modern web apps Playwright
Headless execution Playwright
API and network interception Playwright
Mobile Testing Selenium(Appium)
Large enterprise projects Selenium

Choose Playwright if you’re starting a new project in 2025. Stick with Selenium if your team already has a large suite of Selenium tests and needs support for older browsers.

Conclusion

Finally, Both Playwright and Selenium are powerful tools, but Playwright is the preferred option for modern web automation due to its faster execution, better API design, and built-in features. However, Selenium remains valuable for cross-browser testing, legacy applications, and enterprise-level projects. To master the skills of playwright and selenium, Credo Systemz offers a selenium training course and playwright training as well. As technology evolves, Playwright dominates the automation space in the coming years, but Selenium will continue to be relevant where legacy support is needed.

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