Is Playwright automated testing the future of test automation? The conclusive response is that it relies on the burgeoning automation testing sector. WebDriver Tools have been on the market for a while and have a large user base to help with any issues. The decision between Playwright or any other framework depends on the context they will be employed, as each has its own benefits and drawbacks.
Playwright, which just needs NodeJS as a requirement and allows quick testing for complicated web apps, is still relatively new and lacking support on a variety of fronts, including community, browsers, actual devices, language choices, and connectors. While having limited coverage, Playwright has an advantage in sophisticated web applications.
Do read this blog-post carefully if you want to learn about Playwright automated testing from scratch.
Playwright: What Is It?
Microsoft created and maintains Playwright, an open-source test automation framework built on JavaScript. Through a single, high-level API, the Playwright library is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS and it offers cross-browser automation for testing Chromium ( Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge), WebKit (Apple Safari), and Mozilla Firefox. Playwright’s testing compatibility with Python, C#, .NET, Node.js, and Java in addition to JavaScript makes it beneficial for developers that need to deal with several programming languages. Playwright supports all of the main browsers and can handle testing on both desktop and mobile devices.
What Makes People Choose Playwright?
Playwright is a free and open-source framework that is used for automation testing. Although it is new to the market, its popularity is growing quickly. First release took place in 2020. It is kept up by Microsoft and is often updated and improved. If we compare the amount of downloads for comparable frameworks that have been available for some time, we can observe that Playwright has suddenly become popular.
Key Features
Here are some of the key features that make Playwright so popular.
- Support for cross-browser platforms based on Chromium, WebKit, and Firefox — including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, and Safari — is one of their key features.
- Support for Linux, macOS, and Windows cross-platform execution.
- Python, C#, .NET, Java, JavaScript, and TypeScript are among the languages that are supported.
- Keep track of logs, videos, and images with ease thanks to the built-in auto-wait feature, intelligent assertions that retry until the element is located, and test data tracking.
- Built with current architecture and no limitations, you can easily handle frames and browser events and interact with multi-page, multi-tab websites like a genuine user.
- It conducts tests quicker than another automation tool when they are done simultaneously
Best Practices To Be Used While Using Playwright
In order to get maximum benefits from Playwright, here are some best practices that you must follow.
- Give user-facing attributes first priority: You should employ user-facing properties such as text content, accessibility roles, and label, as much as you can. Why should we use “id” or “class” in our tests to discover components when a user won’t understand what they mean? Your tests won’t only simulate how users locate components; they’ll also be more reliable since user-facing properties often change less frequently than ids, class names, or other implementation specifics.
- Use locators rather than selectors: When your web page changes, using locators will help avoid flakiness or undetected breakages. When employing conventional selectors, these breakages may go undetected.
- Utilize the Page Object Model (POM): Page Object Model is a widespread paradigm that may reduce interactions across pages in several tests, reduce duplication, and increase maintainability.
Writing tests using POM seems more natural since it emphasizes behavior over bare mechanics and communicates more purpose. In order to help you understand how to use it, Playwright has supplied this example in their documentation. That being said, POM is not required at all times. When it makes sense to abstract, use this. I often start without a page object model and just add one when I believe the tests would benefit from it.
- To locate individual components, use double quotes: Use double quotes to allow case sensitivity if you are discovering numerous items using the same partial text.
Why Should You Opt For The Playwright Automation Framework?
Playwright is a new product on the market, but because it supports several different languages, there aren’t many restrictions to list. Since C#Java, and Python are supported by Playwright, those who wish to switch from Selenium to it may do so swiftly. Languages used in programming are not a barrier. The first edition of Playwright was published in January 2020, and it has grown significantly in popularity since then. The DevTools protocol is used by Playwright to create robust, dependable automated tests.
Instead of depending on an intermediate translation layer, Playwright can actually look into and control the browser, enabling the simulation of more insightful and applicable user situations. When compared to other frameworks in the field, which may sometimes be more of a pain, Playwright is a very flexible framework with capabilities that are just plain fun to use.
It makes creating automated tests relatively straightforward, and you can create extensive test suites much faster than you could with other methods. Additionally, the entrance bar is maintained low so that introducing it to a new team won’t be daunting.
Benefits Of Using Playwright
Despite Playwright’s recent launch and the fact that it does not currently provide as many connectors as some other automation platforms, it is widely regarded as being just as developer-friendly as more established frameworks like Selenium and Appium. Here are some justifications:
- Playwright’s speed and coverage make it possible to test complicated applications on several platforms, languages, including mobile web applications.
- Playwright allows you to perform tests at a large scale in a container or locally on a preconfigured infrastructure.
- Playwright interfaces with several continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) technologies, including Jenkins, CircleCI, and GitLab. Other JavaScript testing frameworks, such as Jest, Jasmine, and Mocha, also function well with it.
- Enhanced test accuracy is provided by Playwright’s auto-wait feature, which repeats the pertinent checks on the components and asked-for actions until they are all actionable.
- Playwright has the ability to execute many web pages’ tests simultaneously or concurrently. As a result, Playwright is able to build a unique browser environment for each test, similar to building distinct browser profiles. Scaling up testing is made possible by the complete test isolation that parallel testing offers for individual web pages.
Limitations Of Using Playwright
Playwright is a strong tool with a lot of innovative capabilities, but its novelty does have certain drawbacks.
- Web browser patches: The Playwright team had to submit changes to the engines that were evaluated and authorized by the Webkit and Gecko teams in order to expose the DevTools because they are not publicly available in Webkit and Gecko. The engines may undergo a permanent modification in the future, doing away with the requirement for updates.
- Testing of mobile devices: Instead of using real mobile devices, Playwright enables mobile testing using device emulation. Although this might change in the future, for the time being you can either utilize the default mobile devices in the device descriptor file or construct new mobile devices by defining their userAgent and viewport.
- Limited Support for Browser Versions: There is very limited support for earlier browsers and no support for IE11 because of the required updates and the fact that the scripts execute against the underlying engine. However, if you have the browser downloaded locally, you may specify the kind of browser you want to use.
Automation Testing With Playwright
- Leave the work to the machine!
An automated testing tool called Playwright imitates the activities of a manual tester. Playwright assists in minimizing the time and effort needed for testing by automatically producing test scripts. Playwright is useful for:
- user interactions are simulated,
- server-side logic is tested, and
- check the data’s correctness
Playwright may be used, for instance, to test the login procedure, the search feature, or the checkout flow. You may utilize Playwright to make sure that your website is operating properly and that your visitors have a good time there. Alternatively, you may ask Playwright to take a screenshot of your component in a variety of viewports and browsers to make sure that your deployment won’t result in unforeseen visual changes on that particular component. Playwright is essential since browser testing and responsiveness testing take a long time.
- Playwright does not work for you but with you
There are a few things to think about when choosing which website features to test automatically. If the feature is essential to your site’s operation, you must extensively test it. For instance, if you manage an online store, you must thoroughly verify the checkout process to make sure it is operating as intended.
Regardless of whether the feature has been fully integrated into your website, you should only automate a feature that has finished development in order to prevent future modifications to your automation script. Otherwise, maintaining the script will take up more time than is necessary. Testing may be delayed as a result, and the person in charge of the scripts may have to do a lot of work over again.
If the feature is frequently used, it’s critical to have thorough test coverage to identify any possible flaws. On the other side, it may not be required to have as much test coverage if the functionality is only sometimes utilized.
Make sure the function is designed to enable automation. Any feature you want to automate should be constructed in a manner that can facilitate automation. This implies that before website construction begins, you should have a strategy for automating it.
In the end, there is no one correct answer when determining which website functionality to automate testing for. The choice is based on the particular conditions of each website. It’s also critical to realize that Playwright may be a useful component of your quality assurance procedure when used in concert with other tools to provide a more thorough and reliable QA outcome.
- Playwright Encourages You to Work More Efficiently
Consider strategies to make your next project automation-friendly from the start if you want to save time. You can eventually cut down on the time and labor needed by Playwright by including features that are simple to automate.
Using LambdaTest to Run Playwright Tests
Playwright Test Runner is used for end-to-end automated testing of websites and web applications across all major browsers. The Playwright test runner enables fixtures, parallel testing, out-of-the-box context isolation, and the collection of videos, images, and other test artifacts in the event that a test fails.
You can run Playwright tests on more than 50 real browsers and OS system combinations with LambdaTest, a continuous testing platform. You may redirect your current Playwright tests to LambdaTest cloud with a few changes to your test script and test configuration declarations. Analyze data thoroughly to troubleshoot quickly. Finally, you won’t have to worry about building or maintaining an internal testing infrastructure.
Instead of using general class selectors, which target a variety of items at once, while testing a website, think about utilizing CSS ID selectors, which target particular elements that you will want to test. Similar to this, think about utilizing CSS to handle items that need to be tested in conjunction, like a menu. This will make it simpler to write automated tests that focus on certain sections of your website.
Use an application framework while developing software to make it simple to add new features without having to start from scratch with the code. You may ultimately save a ton of time and effort by taking the time to prepare for automation.
Conclusion
Playwright might be a useful addition to your QA process when it comes to automated testing solutions. Playwright may help you save time and money while still delivering high-quality output because of its robust and simple-to-use features. Playwright is also very flexible and simple to customize to your own requirements. Therefore, including Playwright into your QA mix would be an excellent place to start if you’re trying to develop a more mature QA process internally. We’re sure you’ll be awed by what it can do for your project.
