Playwright: The Modern E2E Testing Framework That Replaced Cypress for Many Teams
Playwright runs real browsers in parallel, supports multiple tabs and origins in one test, and has a codegen recorder - here is why teams are switching from Cypress and how to get started.
Cypress was the gold standard for E2E testing from 2018-2022. Playwright (launched by Microsoft in 2020) has since overtaken it for many teams because of four specific limitations Cypress has that Playwright does not:
Multiple browsers in one test run - Playwright tests against Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit simultaneously
Multiple tabs and origins - Playwright can open two tabs and test cross-tab communication
No port 4000 restriction - Playwright talks to any URL, including production
Faster - Playwright uses a CDP/WebSocket bridge instead of running inside the browser iframe
# Open the browser and record interactions as Playwright test code
npx playwright codegen http://localhost:3000
The codegen recorder generates test code in real-time as you click through the app. It is a starting point - you will clean it up - but it dramatically speeds up writing the initial test skeleton.
Parallel Runs and CI
# Run all tests in parallel
npx playwright test
# Run with UI for debugging
npx playwright test --ui
# CI: run headless with retries
CI=true npx playwright test --retries=2
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Mahmudul Haque Qudrati
CEO & ML Engineer
CEO and ML Engineer at Pristren. Builds AI-powered software for teams and writes about machine learning, LLMs, developer tools, and practical AI applications.
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