The document provides an overview of Microsoft's Playwright, an open-source test automation library designed for web testing across multiple browsers with a unified API. It contrasts Playwright with Selenium, highlighting Playwright's advantages in speed and modern architecture while acknowledging its limited community support and broader coverage offered by Selenium. Additionally, the document outlines installation steps, key features, and testing benefits associated with Playwright.

1. Presented By:
Himanshu Gupta
Software Consultant
Test Automation Studio
Why Should We Use
Microsoft’s PlayWright

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3. Agenda
1
01
All about Microsoft’s Playwright
2
02
Playwright Architecture
3
03
Playwright vs Selenium
4
04
Playwright Installation and its Project Structure
5
05
Test Design & Execution
6 Demo

4. Introduction to Microsoftʼs Playwright
● Playwright is an open source test automation
library initially developed by Microsoft
contributors.
● It is a framework for Web Testing and Automation.
● It allows testing Chromium, Firefox and WebKit
with a single API.
● Playwright supports programming languages
such as Java, Python, C# and Node JS with
JavaScript.
● It is built to enable cross-browser web automation
that is reliable, fast and capable.

5. Playwright Architecture

6. Playwright Architecture
To understand how Playwright's architecture works, we will compare its work with that of
Selenium:
● Selenium sends each command as an independent HTTP request and receives JSON
responses. Each interaction, such as opening a browser window, clicking an element, or
entering text into an input box, then is sent as a separate HTTP request.
● This means we have to wait longer for responses and increases the chances of errors.
● Instead of communicating with each driver through a separate WebSocket connection,
Playwright relies on a single WebSocket connection to communicate with all drivers,
which remains in place until testing is finished.
● This allows commands to be sent quickly on a single connection, thus reducing the
points of failure.

7. Playwright vs Selenium
Criteria Playwright Selenium
Language Supports multiple languages such
as JavaScript, Java, Python, and
.NET C#.
Supports multiple languages
such as Java, Python, C#,
Ruby, Perl, PHP, and
JavaScript.
Test Runner Frameworks
Supported
Mocha, Jest, Jasmine Mocha, Jest, Jasmine,
Protractor, and WebDriverIO
Prerequisites NodeJS should be Installed Java, Eclipse IDE,
SeleniumStandalone Server,
Client Language Bindings, and
Browser Drivers should be
installed

8. Playwright vs Selenium
Criteria Playwright Selenium
Operating Systems
Supported
Windows, Linux, and Mac OS Windows, Linux, Solaris, and Mac
OS
Architecture Headless Browser with
event-driven architecture
Layered Architecture based on
JSON Wire Protocol
Browsers Supported Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit Chrome, Firefox, IE, Edge,
Opera, Safari, and more
Support Since Playwright is fairly new,
the support from the community
is limited as compared to
Selenium
Provides commercial support for
its users via its sponsors in
Selenium Ecosystem and
self-support documents. Strong
community support from
professionals across the world

9. Playwright vs Selenium: Which to Choose?
● Both Playwright and Selenium have advantages and limitations, which means choosing
between them is subjective to the scenario they will be used for.
● Playwright offers fast testing in complex web applications with headless architecture and
requires NodeJS as a prerequisite, it is relatively new. It lacks support on various levels, such
as community, browsers, real devices, language options, and integrations. Selenium has all of
this to offer.
● Each supports CI/CD for a software project with due accuracy.
● Playwright has the upper hand in complex web applications, but has limited coverage. On the
contrary, Selenium offers comprehensive coverage, scalability, flexibility, and strong
community support.
● It depends on the project requirements and the priorities to choose one among these two
testing frameworks. When the architecture is very complex with limited coverage, then
Playwright is the option to select for testing. In a scenario that requires wider coverage,
Selenium is the best bet.

10. Key Features of the Playwright Framework
● Support for cross-browser platforms built on Chromium, WebKit, and Firefox – which
includes Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
● Auto-wait built-in, smart assertions that retry until the element is found, and test data
tracing – keep track of logs, videos and screenshots easily.
● Support for cross-language, including JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Java, and .NET –
write tests in the environment that suits you while still covering all areas and formats.
● Support for cross-platform execution on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
● Built with modern architecture and no restrictions – interact with multi-page, multi-tab
websites like a real user, and tackle frames and browser events with ease.

11. Playwright Installation and its Project Structure
Here are the prerequisites to install Playwright:
● NodeJS
● VS Code Editor
Steps to install the Playwright:
● After the prerequisites, Create a folder with “Playwright_Demo”
as folder name.
● Launch VS Code Editor and Open the “Playwright_Demo”
Folder.
● Open your terminal and Run this command:
npm init playwright@latest
● Playwright will download the browsers needed as well as
create the following files i.e. playwright.config.ts, package. json
and package-lock.json.

12. Writing your First Test in Playwright
Delivery

13. Test execution in Playwright
Delivery
● Run this command to run your tests:
npx playwright test
This command will run your tests in headless mode for all three browsers i.e. Chromium,
Firefox and WebKit.
● To see the report, One can run this command that will open report in your browser.
npx playwright show-report

14. Report Generated on Browser
Delivery

15. Playwright testing Benefits
● CI/CD Integration Support: Playwright supports CI/CD integration. It even provides docker
images for some language bindings.
● Types of Testing: Playwright supports Functional, End to End, and API Testing. With a
Third-party plugin, Playwright can be integrated with Accessibility Testing.
● Parallel Browser Testing: Playwright also supports the execution of simultaneous tests
through Browser Context and can run parallel tests with multiple browsers.
● Built-in Reporters: Playwright framework, by default, comes with a lot of valuable reporters
like List, Dot, Line, JSON, JUnit, and HTML Reporters.
● Typescript Support out of the box: Zero configuration is required for typescript language
support as it understands your typescript and javascript code.
● Debugging Tools Support: Playwright provides many different debugging options making it
developer-friendly. Some debugging options are Playwright Inspector, VSCode Debugger.

16. Demo

17. QA

18. Thank You !
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