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Playwright and Puppeteer are open-source browser automation tools with similar APIs. They share a common history: the team that created Playwright previously worked on Puppeteer. Playwright builds on that experience with broader browser and language support, a dedicated test runner, and testing-focused features.

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Key differences

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Browser support

Playwright runs against Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. This makes it a strong choice when you need to exercise the same flow across browser engines, including WebKit for Safari-like coverage. Puppeteer supports Chrome and Firefox. It remains a good fit when your automation is centered on Chrome and you do not need WebKit coverage.

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Testing features

Playwright is available as both a browser automation library and the Playwright Test framework. Playwright Test includes parallel execution, fixtures, web-first assertions, retries, reporting, and trace collection. Its locators wait for elements to meet actionability checks before performing actions, which reduces the need for explicit waits. Puppeteer provides the browser automation layer. You can combine it with a test runner and assertion library that match your existing stack. This can be useful when you want a smaller automation-focused API or already have testing infrastructure in place.

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API and migration

The tools use similar concepts such as browsers, pages, selectors, and network interception, so many scripts can be migrated incrementally. Common changes include:
  • Importing a Playwright browser type such as chromium instead of the Puppeteer package.
  • Creating browser contexts explicitly when you use the Playwright library, or using the isolated page and context fixtures in Playwright Test.
  • Replacing page.setViewport() with page.setViewportSize().
  • Moving cookie operations from Page to BrowserContext.
  • Replacing element handles and manual waits with locators and web-first assertions where possible.
For a command-by-command migration guide, see Moving from Puppeteer to Playwright.

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Which should you choose?

Choose Playwright when you need cross-browser coverage, built-in test tooling, multi-language support, or isolated parallel tests. Choose Puppeteer when Chrome-focused automation meets your requirements or when you want to add browser control to an existing JavaScript or TypeScript setup without adopting a test framework. Both projects evolve regularly. Before choosing, review the current Playwright browser support and Puppeteer browser support for the versions you plan to use.