Playwright vs Cypress: Which Testing Framework is Right for You?

Automation testing plays an important role in ensuring the performance of web applications by identifying issues early in the development cycle. The latest frameworks such as Playwright vs Cypress are proving to be better options than older ones like Selenium. These frameworks have been trendy since the rise of JavaScript in 2015.

Playwright and Cypress provide reliable and efficient testing since they directly communicate with the user interface(UI) through browsers, unlike Selenium, which depends on proxies. In this blog, we'll compare two popular automation testing frameworks, Playwright and Cypress, to help you choose the best testing framework for your application.

Microsoft develops Playwright and it’s a more popular tool for testing modern web applications. It offers powerful features, supports multiple browsers, parallel execution, visual comparison, and faster execution, and provides extensive API coverage, making it the best choice for QA automation engineers.

Cypress is a popular tool that helps developers to test their software to make sure it works correctly. It's easy to use, helps you to find the problems very quickly, and has a supportive community.

After trying out both options, we decided to go with Microsoft Playwright instead of Cypress as the foundation of our product. We made this choice because Playwright has some important benefits that set it apart. These advantages include:

1. It helps us automate complex tasks that our customers need.
2. It has great tools for finding and fixing problems, runs tests quickly, and has a strong community of users who help each other.
3. Microsoft is actively improving Playwright, which means it gets better and better at doing what we need it to do.

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What is a Playwright?

Playwright is a free and open-source automation testing tool that helps testers test their web applications thoroughly. Launched in 2020, it quickly became popular among testers due to its wide range of features and robust architecture.

Key Features Of Playwright

• Cross-browser testing: You can test your application across multiple browsers, including Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit, ensuring consistency and reliability.
• Efficient parallel testing: Unlike other testing tools, we can effortlessly execute automated tests parallel without the need for third-party libraries. To do so simply update the `workers` value in the Playwright config file.
• Fast and reliable headless testing: Say goodbye to slow testing! Run your tests in headless mode and experience faster execution speeds and reduced flakiness, giving you a more efficient testing process that saves you time and resources.
• Comprehensive API: Leverage a rich API that covers a wide range of features, including browser automation, network interception, and more, giving you total control over your testing process.
• Intelligent auto-waiting: Auto-waiting feature automatically waits for elements to be actionable before performing actions, ensuring that your tests run smoothly and reliably, every time.
• Enhanced test visibility: Take advantage of built-in reporters that provide detailed information into test results and debugging, helping you identify and resolve issues quickly.
• Device-agnostic testing: With Playwright, you can execute tests with any screen height and width, simulating various devices and scenarios, including mobile phones, tablets, and desktops. This means you can ensure your application looks and feels great on any device, without the hassle of manual testing.
• Files upload and download: Playwright simplifies the automation of file upload and download actions. This feature is useful for testing file-handling functions, such as uploading and downloading files.

Pros

• Powerful API for complex testing scenarios
• Strong support for multiple browsers
• Excellent debugging tools for easy issue resolution
• Rich documentation and active development for staying up-to-date
• Fast and reliable test execution for efficient testing

Cons

• Relatively new, so the community and ecosystem are still developing
• Steeper learning curve requires more time and effort to master

Installation and Setup Playwright

To install Playwright, you can use either npm or yarn:

npm install playwright
# OR
yarn add playwright

After the installation, you need to download the browser binaries required for Playwright to work. This can be done using the following command:

npx playwright install

This will download the Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit browser binaries, enabling Playwright to run tests across different browsers.

What is Cypress?

Cypress is an open-source end-to-end testing framework that has been designed specifically for modern JavaScript applications. It has a strong focus on developer experience and offers powerful tools for writing and debugging tests. If you known more about the debugging tips and tricks of mobile app testing learn. 

Key Features Of Cypress

• Time travel: Ability to see snapshots of your application at each step in your test.
• Real-time reloads: Automatically reloads the application upon test changes.
• Automatic waiting: Automatically waits for commands and assertions before moving on.
• Network traffic control: Intercept and manipulate HTTP requests and responses.
• Debugging: Powerful debugging capabilities with detailed error messages and stack traces.
• Built-in dashboard: Provides a rich UI for visualizing test runs and results.

Pros

• Powerful and user-friendly API that makes developing tests and fixing simpler.
• Easy to use and set up.
• Large, active community with a wide range of integrations and plugins.
• Comprehensive and properly maintained documentation.
• Tests performed quickly and regularly, ideal for CI/CD pipelines.
• Reloads in real-time so you can see test results right away.

Cons

• Limit cross-browser testing by supporting Chromium-based browsers primarily.
• Time-consuming while the test is executing.
• Large test suites could cause performance problems.
• Steeper learning curve for more customized and advanced features.
• Web apps are best suited for this; microservices and non-web applications are less ideal.

Installation and Setup Cypress

To install Cypress, you can use either npm or yarn:

npm install cypress
# OR
yarn add cypress

Once Cypress is installed, you can open it using the following command:

npx cypress open

This will open the Cypress Test Runner, where you can start writing and running your tests.

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Head-to-Head Comparison: Playwright vs Cypress

This section will compare playwright vs cypress across several key areas, including supported languages, cross-browser testing, test execution speed, debugging and error reporting etc. This comparison will help you understand which framework aligns best with your project's needs.

For more insights on similar topics, check out more of Bug vs. Defect to enhance your understanding of software issues.

Advanced Features Comparison: Playwright vs Cypress

Comparing advanced features, it can be shown that Cypress and Playwright both provide strong capabilities for improving test reliability and efficiency. In this section, we’ll compare advanced features like trace, parallel execution, tagging tests and attach screenshots/videos.

1. Trace test execution

Trace is a powerful tool for debugging and understanding the execution of your tests. It provides a detailed, step-by-step view of your test run, allowing you to identify and fix issues more efficiently. With tracing, you can capture screenshots, view the state of your application at each test step, and even replay test runs to see exactly what happened.

• Playwright
  Playwright provides trace viewer functionality that allows you to trace your tests, capture screenshots, and view the step-by-step execution of your tests. This helps in debugging complex issues.
  To enable tracing, you can configure it in the playwright config file:

export default defineConfig({
    use: {
        trace: 'on-first-retry' // 5-6 options available to trace our tests
    }

• Cypress
  Cypress provides built-in time travel and snapshot capabilities. You can view the state of your application at each test step in the Cypress Test Runner. Cypress automatically takes screenshots on test failures and can record videos of test runs.
  To enable detailed tracing in Cypress, including additional configuration for screenshots and videos, you can adjust your cypress.config.js:

module.exports = {
  screenshotOnRunFailure: true,
  video: true,
  screenshotsFolder: 'cypress/screenshots',
  videosFolder: 'cypress/videos',
  e2e: {
    setupNodeEvents(on, config) {
      on('after:screenshot', (details) => {
        // Implement custom logic if needed
      });

      on('after:spec', (details) => {
        // Implement custom logic for videos if needed
      });
    }
  }
};

2. Tagging test cases

Tagging test cases allows you to categorize and filter your tests based on specific criteria, such as smoke tests, regression tests, or sanity tests. This makes it easier to run specific tests, track test results, and maintain your test suite.

• Playwright
  To assign tag our tests as @smoke or @regression, and then filter by tag in the test report. Or you might want to only run tests that have a certain tag.
  To tag a test, either provide an additional details object when declaring a test or add @-token to the test title. Note that tags must start with the @ symbol.

test('smoke test', {
  tag: '@fast',
}, async ({ page }) => {
  // ...
});

test('test full report', {
  tag: ['@smoke', '@regression', '@sanity'],
}, async ({ page }) => {
  // ...
});

test('regression test @regression', async ({ page }) => {
  // ...
});

• Cypress
  To add tags to a test, add a comment to the test with the ‘tag:’ syntax, followed by the tag name.

describe('My test suite', () => { 
    it('My test case', () => { 
      // tag: smoke 
    }); 
});

describe('My test suite', () => { 
    it('My test case', () => { 
      // tag: smoke 
      // tag: regression 
    }); 
});

3. Parallel execution

Parallel execution of tests is a powerful feature that can significantly reduce the overall testing time. By running multiple tests concurrently, you can speed up your testing process and improve efficiency.

• Playwright
  Playwright supports parallel test execution natively. You can configure the number of workers in your Playwright config file and simply execute tests using the npx playwright test command:

export default defineConfig({
    workers: 4
})

• Cypress
  Cypress supports parallel test execution through its Dashboard service, which distributes tests across multiple machines to run in parallel. This requires setting up the Dashboard and configuring your CI pipeline accordingly. We can execute cypress tests in parallel using cypress run --record --parallel command.

4. Attach screenshots or videos of the failure

When a test fails, it's essential to have visibility into what went wrong. Attaching screenshots or videos of the failure can provide valuable insights into the issue, making it easier to debug and resolve.

• Playwright
  Playwright can take screenshots and save videos on test failures by configuring the test options in playwright config file. We can see them with the generated playwright report.

export default defineConfig({
    use: {
        screenshot: 'only-on-failure',
        video: 'retain-on-failure'
    }
})

• Cypress
  Cypress automatically captures screenshots on test failures and can record videos of the entire test run. These are saved in the configured screenshots and videos folders. To customize these settings, you can modify the Cypress configuration file (cypress.config.js).
  To enable screenshots and video recordings in Cypress, you can use the following commands and configuration snippets:

module.exports = {
  screenshotOnRunFailure: true,
  screenshotsFolder: 'cypress/screenshots',
  video: true, 
  videosFolder: 'cypress/videos', 
  videoUploadOnPasses: false
};

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Closing Notes

The quality and reliability of web apps are greatly affected by the choice of testing framework. In the playwright vs cypress debate, Playwright's advanced features, including parallel execution, tracing, and debugging, ensure complete coverage and quicker release cycles. It's a future-proof option for demanding testing requirements because of its stable API and continuous development.

The ease of use and robust debugging capabilities of Cypress can increase developer productivity by reducing the time required to find and resolve problems. Its real-time feedback is very helpful in providing a seamless user experience, improving program stability, and identifying problems early on.

Businesses can improve application performance, simplify testing processes, and generate better results by choosing the tool that best fits their team's experience and project objectives. Contact us for more information of testing strategy.