Playwright vs. Cypress

Hari Mahesh

In this article, we briefly discuss Playwright and Cypress and their pros and cons. Also, for better understanding, we have created a comparison between the two to help you choose the better-suited tool for your testing activities.

Let us start!

Playwright

It is an open-source automation library developed by Microsoft for web application testing. Using Playwright, we can automate browser interactions with different browser drivers, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari. The browser interactions can be with GUI or without GUI, which is often called headless mode.

Playwright supports programming languages such as JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, .NET, and Java, making it versatile for many development environments.

Advantages of Using Playwright

• Cross-Browser Testing: Playwright provides seamless support for multiple browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and WebKit, enabling developers to test their web applications across different environments with the same script. This helps ensure the application works consistently across all major browsers.
• Headless Mode: It supports running browsers in headless mode, which is particularly useful for Continuous Integration (CI) environments. Running tests in headless mode speeds up the execution time and allows for testing without a graphical user interface.
• Auto-Wait Features: The playwright automatically waits for elements to be ready before performing actions on them. This reduces the need for manual waits or sleep in the test scripts, leading to more reliable and faster tests.
• Rich Set of APIs: Offers a comprehensive API that covers a wide range of user interactions and browser functionalities, including network conditions simulation, file uploads, and handling of iframes and shadows DOM. This enables thorough testing of complex web applications.
• Parallel Test Execution: Playwright can run tests in parallel across multiple browser instances, significantly reducing the time required for end-to-end test suites. This feature is highly beneficial for agile development processes, where quick feedback cycles are critical.

Disadvantages of Using Playwright

• Learning Curve: There can be a significant learning curve for testers or developers unfamiliar with Node.js or the programming languages supported by Playwright (such as JavaScript, Python, .NET, and Java). Understanding asynchronous programming is crucial when working with a Playwright, which might be challenging for beginners.
• Resource Intensity for Parallel Testing: Running tests in parallel across multiple browsers and devices can be resource-intensive, potentially requiring significant computational resources. This might impact the performance of local development machines or increase costs when using cloud-based testing environments.
• Browser Compatibility: While Playwright supports testing across multiple browsers, there can still be edge cases or browser-specific behaviors that are not handled uniformly. This may require additional effort to debug and ensure consistent test outcomes across all supported browsers.
• Integration Complexity: While Playwright integrates well with many development environments and CI/CD pipelines, setting up these integrations, especially in complex projects, can be time-consuming and require additional configuration and troubleshooting.

Here is a Playwright alternative to help ease your testing process immensely.

Cypress

Cypress is an open-source, front-end testing tool that simplifies web application setup, writing, running, and debugging tests. Unlike many other testing frameworks that operate by running outside the browser and executing remote commands, Cypress runs directly within the browser. This approach allows for real-time interaction with the application, leading to faster test creation and more accurate test results.

Cypress supports JavaScript-based testing, making it a popular choice among developers who work with modern JavaScript frameworks such as React, Angular, and Vue.js.

Advantages of Using Cypress

• Automatic Waiting: Cypress automatically waits for commands and assertions before moving on. This eliminates the need for explicit waits or sleep commands in the test, reducing flakiness and improving the reliability of tests.
• Direct Access to the DOM: Cypress operates directly within the browser, giving it native access to the DOM. This approach allows for more accurate and faster interactions with web elements, enabling developers to write tests that closely mimic user actions.
• Built-in Debugging: With Cypress, debugging is more straightforward. The test runner provides readable error messages and allows you to inspect the application state at any point in a test. Developers can also use familiar debugging tools like Chrome DevTools directly in tests.
• Real-Time Feedback: Cypress offers a unique Test Runner that allows developers to see tests executing in real-time within the browser. This feature provides immediate feedback on the tests’ status, making debugging and developing tests more intuitive and efficient.

Disadvantages of Using Cypress

• Browser Support Limitations: Cypress historically had limitations in browser support, primarily focusing on Chrome, Firefox, and Electron. Although there have been improvements, including support for Edge and partial support for Safari, its range is not as broad as other testing tools, potentially limiting testing scenarios across a more comprehensive array of browsers.
• No Native Mobile Support: Cypress is designed for testing web applications in a desktop browser environment. It does not offer native support for testing mobile applications or mobile web views, which can be a significant limitation for projects requiring comprehensive mobile testing.
• Single Tab Testing: Cypress tests are confined to a single tab and cannot interact with browser features such as multiple tabs or specific browser extensions. This limitation can affect testing scenarios that require interactions across numerous tabs or rely on browser-specific behaviors.
• Performance with Large Test Suites: While Cypress offers fast test execution for smaller test suites, its performance can degrade when dealing with huge or complex applications. This is because it runs in the browser, which can consume significant system resources, potentially leading to slower execution times and requiring more powerful hardware for optimal performance.

Here is a Cypress alternative that helps you bypass these disadvantages.

Comparing Playwright with Cypress

Final Verdict

Playwright and Cypress, have many advantages. Still, there are a few disadvantages associated with these tools. For example, they depend on programming languages, so the code repository gets too complex when the test case count increases, especially for a massive project. So, for the testing team, debugging and maintaining the scripts is an arduous task.

Another drawback is these two tools depend on DOM element properties for identifying locators, so any change in the element locators fails the test script, resulting in a false positive bug. Hence, rather than making the testing tasks easy and saving the tester time, it adds more burden and shifts the focus to maintenance rather than increasing the code coverage.

Therefore, it would be crucial to migrate to intelligent and innovative automation tools like testRigor, whose integrated generative AI creates test data based on the requirements. Also, it is a scriptless tool, which means we can create test scripts in plain parsed English. So, even the manual testers or anyone on the team can contribute to creating or editing test scripts and execute them faster. Here are testRigor’s top features.

It’s always good to first understand the market trends, project requirements, team skills, etc., and then move forward with the latest test automation tools.