What makes Playwright different from Selenium and Cypress?

The Answer

Playwright combines the best of both worlds: Selenium's multi-browser support (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) with Cypress's modern DX (auto-waiting, great debugging). But it goes further with native multi-tab, multi-origin, iframe support, and a WebSocket-based protocol for speed.

Deep Dive Explanation

Selenium: mature, multi-language, WebDriver protocol (slower, no auto-wait). Cypress: great DX, but single-tab, single-origin, JS only. Playwright: multi-language (JS/TS/Python/Java/C#), multi-browser, multi-tab, multi-origin, fast WebSocket protocol, built-in auto-waiting.

example.spec.ts

// Playwright advantage: Multi-context in one test
test('multi-user scenario', async ({ browser }) => {
  const userAContext = await browser.newContext({ storageState: 'auth-admin.json' });
  const userBContext = await browser.newContext({ storageState: 'auth-user.json' });

  const adminPage = await userAContext.newPage();
  const userPage = await userBContext.newPage();

  await adminPage.goto('/admin/messages');
  await adminPage.getByRole('button', { name: 'Send Alert' }).click();

  // Verify user receives it (in same test)
  await expect(userPage.getByText('New Alert!')).toBeVisible();
});