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We've been running Playwright in production since the beginning. Today, we're going all in.
When we first launched Browser Checks with Playwright support, we proved something critical: the most popular test automation framework since Selenium isn't just for testing—it's the foundation of modern production monitoring.
But that was just the beginning.
Today, we're announcing Playwright Check Suites—our bet on the future of monitoring and the most significant evolution in Checkly's history.
From Browser Checks to Check Suites: Our Evolution
Our Browser Checks introduced Playwright to production monitoring, but they came with constraints. We provided curated runtime dependencies, a single test spec per check, and a managed environment that worked well for many use cases.
Playwright Check Suites removes every limitation.
You're no longer adapting Playwright to fit our platform. You're running it exactly as you do locally—with full control over:
- Your entire playwright.config.ts — Every setting, every configuration, exactly as written
- Complete dependency control — Private packages, custom registries, any npm module you need
- Full project support — Multi-browser configurations, device emulation, your exact setup tailored to your environments
- Granular test selection — Use tags (@critical, @smoke), projects, or any combination
- Your test organization — Multiple specs, test suites, however you structure your code
This isn't a wrapper. This isn't an abstraction. This is native Playwright execution in production.
What This Unlocks
1. Zero Rewrite Required
Your existing E2E tests become production monitors immediately. The Playwright projects you're already maintaining, the test suites you've invested hundreds of hours building—they run as-is.
No translation layer. No compromises. No technical debt.
2. Future-Proof Your Monitoring
When Playwright ships AI-powered test generation next month, you'll have it. When self-healing locators arrive, you'll have them. When the next breakthrough in browser automation launches, you'll be running it in production on day one.
You're not just monitoring your app. You're building on the most actively developed browser automation platform in the world.
3. Monitoring as Code, Perfected
Playwright Check Suites takes our Monitoring as Code philosophy to its logical conclusion. Your monitoring infrastructure lives in your repository, versioned alongside your application code, deployed through your CI/CD pipeline.
This approach brings advanced programmability that's impossible in traditional UI-based tools. Every change is tracked, every deployment is automated, and your monitoring scales as fast as your application.
4. The Same Tests, Everywhere
Run identical tests in your CI pipeline and in production. The same Playwright code that validates your PRs monitors your live users. No drift, no duplication, no "works on my machine" scenarios.
This is what true shift-left monitoring looks like.
"The power lies in being able to connect my GitHub repository and have Checkly run the exact same Playwright .spec.js files I use for local development and Continuous Integration—with no reformatting needed." - SWISCO
How It Works
Getting started takes minutes:
# Install the Playwright Check Suite CLI
npm create checkly@latest
# Select your tests to monitor
# Use tags, projects, or specific specs
npx checkly test
# Deploy to production
npx checkly deploy
Your tests run globally from 20+ locations, with full Playwright traces, videos, and screenshots when things fail. Configure alerting to Slack, PagerDuty, or any integration you need. And because it's all code, everything is reproducible, reviewable, and testable.
You can read more on getting started and configuring your Playwright Check Suites in our docs.
The Market Is Moving
The global automation testing market is expected to grow from $20.7 billion in 2023 to $49.9 billion by 2028 according to Tymon Global, and Playwright is driving much of that growth. Companies switching from Cypress to Playwright are reporting 88% improvements in execution time, and enterprises from startups to Fortune 500s are adopting it as their standard.
We're seeing the same pattern we saw with Selenium 15 years ago—the consolidation around a single dominant framework. But this time, that framework is modern, fast, and built for the AI-powered development workflows that are defining the next decade.
Why This Matters Now
Playwright has crossed a watershed moment. It reached 2 million weekly downloads in just one year—a milestone that took Cypress three years and Selenium six years to achieve, according to QA Wiki. But download numbers only tell part of the story.
The real shift is what's being built on top of Playwright.
AI agents are being integrated directly into the framework. Microsoft's Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol) now enables AI to interact with live browser sessions. Tools like GitHub Copilot's Coding Agent include Playwright natively. The entire ecosystem—from test generation to self-healing tests to intelligent debugging—is moving to Playwright as the foundation.
Teams that adopted Selenium early dominated QA for a generation. Playwright in 2025 is that moment, right now.
And if you're running Playwright as a test framework in 2025, the question is: why aren't you running it in production?
This Is Just The Beginning
Playwright Check Suites represents more than a product launch. It's our commitment to the future of monitoring.
We believe that:
- Monitoring should be code-first, not UI-first
- Tests and monitors should be unified, not separate workflows
- AI will transform testing, and we're positioning you to benefit from it
Browser Checks proved the concept. Playwright Check Suites is us going native—full feature parity, zero compromises, ready for whatever the Playwright ecosystem builds next.
The future of monitoring isn't just synthetic transactions. It's your actual automation framework, running everywhere, all the time. With full traces, smart alerting, and the confidence that comes from testing exactly what your users experience.
This is Playwright in Production 2.0.
Get Started Today
Playwright Check Suites is in beta and available to all Checkly users.
→ Read the documentation
→ Join our community for support and updates
→ Start your free trial
The companies that bet on the right framework early will define the next generation of quality engineering. We're betting on Playwright.