Playwright vs Puppeteer: The Right Browser Automation Tool

Playwright and Puppeteer are both popular open-source frameworks developed for web automation and browser testing. Yet, there are some significant differences between the two that may affect their suitability for specific use cases.

This article examines differences and similarities between Playwright and Puppeteer including browser support, API design, web scraping capabilities and community support.

The Background of Playwright and Puppeteer

• Playwright: Developed by Microsoft and released in 2020. Playwright was created to address limitations in Puppeteer but moved from Google to Microsoft.
• Puppeteer: Developed by the Google Chrome teamandreleased in 2017. The tool was initially released as an automation tool for the Chromium browser automation tasks.

Key differences between Playwright and Puppeteer

What is Playwright Framework?

Playwright is an open-source Node.js library that enables web testing and browser automation. Some key features of Playwright include:

• Capable of scraping dynamic web pages.
• Provide an auto-waiting function. In end-to-end automated testing, it is hard to know when elements on a website or web app are actionable. To interact with a disappearing element, you must wait for it to reappear manually, which prolongs the testing process. An automatic waiting mechanism monitors the elements and waits for disabled elements to be actionable.
• Run browsers in headfull and headless (i.e. without a user interface) mode.
• Capture screenshots and generate PDFs. It is important to note that PDF generation is only available in headless Chromium.
• Support CSS and XPath selectors. CSS and XPath selectors enable users to locate elements on a document, which is necessary for data extraction.
• Record videos for tests. The video is only accessible after the page or browser context has been closed.
• Playwright is available in the programming languages Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, and .NET (C#).
• Support the use of proxies.

Playwright installation: It requires Python 3.7 or newer. You can install Playwright either using:

1. npm or yarn: run “npm init playwright@latest” or “yarn create playwright”
2. VS Code Extension: Install the VS Code extension from the marketplace first. Run the “Install Playwright” command after it has been installed.

Main advantages of using Playwright

• If you write non-JavaScript web UI tests, Playwright is an optimal choice.Playwright supports programming languages including Python, Java, .NET (#C)​ , JavaScript, and TypeScript​.
• Can test multiple browsers in parallel.
• Has cross-language and cross-browser support. It supports browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Safari.

Potential limitations of using Playwright

While Playwright has many advantages, there are some potential disadvantages to consider, including:

• Chrome’s headless mode does not support Chrome extensions in Playwright.
• It does not support data parsing.
• Playwright is incompatible with particular Microsoft Edge / Google Chrome policy configurations.

What is Puppeteer Framework?

Puppeteer is an open-source Node.js library for automating web browsers. It was developed by Google and is commonly used for automating end-to-end testing and web scraping. Some key features of Puppeteer include:

• Allow developers to control a headless Chrome or Chromium web browser instance.
• Can be used in a server environment without requiring a graphical user interface, so there is no need to wait for visual elements to load. This makes it possible to scrape a significant amount of data in a short period.
• Generate screenshots of web pages.
• Run Chrome or Chromium in headless mode.
• Provide built-in selectors such as XPath, text selectors, and custom selectors to locate elements within a document.
• Support Chrome extension testing. However, it does not support extension testing in headless mode. This is not a limitation of Puppeteer. Chrome and Chromium extensions are designed to work with a graphical user interface and therefore do not function in headless mode.

Main advantages of using Puppeteer

• Provides several debugging methods that make troubleshooting easier.
• Strong integration with Chrome and Chromium.
• There is no setup required. If you already have Node.js installed on your computer, you can install Puppeteer by running the following command (Figure 1). After installing Puppeteer, you can begin using it in your Node.js projects.

Figure 1:  Show how to install Puppeteer using Python’s script

Potential limitations of using Puppeteer

Some potential limitations of Puppeteer include:

• Puppeteer primarily supports JavaScript. If your team has limited knowledge of JavaScript, Puppeteer may not be the best option.
• Do not support cross-browser. It relies solely on Chrome and Chromium, which can make it less useful for web applications that do not support those browsers.

Playwright vs Puppeteer: which one to choose for web scraping?

• Playwright: Cross-browser support is one of the Playwright’s major advantages for web scraping. Playwright may be a better option if you need to extract a significant amount of web data. 
• Puppeteer: It focuses solely on JavaScript. If you are unfamiliar with JavaScript or prefer not to use it to build a web scraper. Playwright is a more flexible library for developers to build a web scraper in their preferred language. 

Both Playwright and Puppeteer are capable of scraping dynamic web pages. However, if the scrapped website employs anti-scraping technologies such as CAPTCHAs and IP bans, you will need to use a proxy service with Playwright or Puppeteer to overcome anti-scraping challenges. Proxies enable web scrapers to circumvent location restrictions and handle anti-scraping techniques.

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Figure  2:  How Web Unlocker optimizes users request’s processes

To learn how to integrate Bright Data’s proxies with Puppeteer, see the guideline on the topic.