Lets your code open a real browser and click, type and read pages like a person. Used to test websites, collect data and give AI assistants a browser.
Playwright has become the standard way to let a program use a web browser. It's made by Microsoft, works with the engines behind Chrome, Firefox and Safari, and waits for pages to be ready by itself, so things break far less often. It's now the most popular choice for automatically testing websites, and it's also the browser inside many crawlers and AI assistants, including Crawl4AI and Crawlee. It gets new releases about once a month, the guides are excellent, and it's free to use in any project.
Playwright lets a program use a web browser the way a person does. It opens a page, clicks buttons, fills in forms, waits for things to load and reads what's on the screen. People use it for three main jobs: checking that their website still works after every change, collecting information from sites that only show their content in a browser, and letting AI assistants browse the web. It's made by Microsoft and works with JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Java and .NET.
Plenty of other tools use Playwright behind the scenes. Crawl4AI and Crawlee use it to open pages that need a real browser, and Scrapy can use it through an add-on called scrapy-playwright. So even if you never write Playwright code yourself, it may well be doing the browsing for you.
These are the three best-known free tools for testing websites in a real browser. They overlap a lot, but each suits a different kind of team.
Best forTesting and automating modern websites
Fast, waits for pages on its own and runs many tests at once. Also the usual choice for collecting data and giving AI a browser. The default pick for new projects.
Best forBig existing test suites and more languages
The oldest and most widely supported option, with the widest choice of languages. It's slower, and you have to tell it when to wait, so tests break more often. Makes sense if you already have lots of Selenium tests.
Best forFront-end teams that only write JavaScript
Very friendly for testing one web app you're building, with a great step-by-step debugger. JavaScript only, and made for testing rather than collecting data or automating other sites.
A quick way to choose: starting something new? Use Playwright. Already have a large Selenium setup that works? Keep it, and write new tests in Playwright if you like. A small JavaScript team testing its own app, who love Cypress's debugger? Cypress is still a fine choice. For collecting data or giving an AI a browser, Playwright is the clear winner of the three.
Playwright is made of parts you can use on their own in your project. Copy a prompt to have your AI assistant add one for you, and see the licence card for what you may do with them.
Free to use, even in closed products
The main Playwright package for JavaScript and TypeScript. Your code opens a browser, visits pages, clicks and types, and reads back what's there.
npm i playwrightFree to use, even in closed products
Playwright's testing tool. Write checks that click through your site like a visitor, run them in every browser at once, and replay step by step anything that fails.
npm init playwright@latestFree to use, even in closed products
The official Python version of Playwright. It does the same job as the JavaScript one, including waiting for pages to be ready by itself.
pip install playwright && playwright installReads websites for you and turns them into clean text or tidy data your AI can use, even pages that only load in a browser.
Build web crawlers that keep going when things go wrong. Reads simple pages quickly and opens a real browser only when a page needs one.
A fast, long-trusted Python tool for collecting information from large websites and saving it as tidy data you can use.
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