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CSS-Tricks VS Playwright

Compare CSS-Tricks VS Playwright and see what are their differences

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CSS-Tricks logo CSS-Tricks

CSS-Tricks is a website about websites.

Playwright logo Playwright

Playwright is automation software for Chromium, Firefox, Webkit using the Node.js library having a single API in place.
  • CSS-Tricks Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-02
  • Playwright Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-22

CSS-Tricks features and specs

  • Comprehensive Content
    CSS-Tricks offers a wide array of tutorials, articles, and guides covering various aspects of CSS, web development, and design. This makes it a valuable resource for both beginners and advanced users.
  • Expert Authors
    Many articles are written by experienced professionals in the industry, ensuring high-quality and reliable information.
  • Community Engagement
    The site has an active community where users can interact, ask for advice, and share experiences. This fosters a collaborative learning environment.
  • Regular Updates
    CSS-Tricks frequently updates its content to reflect the latest trends and best practices in web development, making it a timely resource.
  • Diverse Topics
    In addition to CSS, the site covers a wide range of topics including JavaScript, tooling, design principles, and backend technologies.

Possible disadvantages of CSS-Tricks

  • Overwhelming for Beginners
    The sheer volume of content available can be overwhelming for beginners, making it difficult for them to know where to start.
  • Mixed Quality
    While many articles are written by experts, there's some variability in the quality of the content as it includes guest posts and community contributions.
  • Navigational Complexity
    The site can sometimes be difficult to navigate due to its extensive archive of articles, making it challenging to find specific information quickly.
  • Advertisements
    The site features advertisements, which can be distracting for some users.
  • Steeper Learning Curve
    Some of the content assumes a higher level of prior knowledge, which might intimidate less experienced development practitioners.

Playwright features and specs

  • Cross-Browser Testing
    Playwright supports testing on Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit, providing comprehensive coverage across different browsers, thus ensuring greater compatibility and a wider test reach.
  • Auto-Wait Mechanism
    Playwright automatically waits for elements to be actionable before performing interactions, reducing the need for explicit wait commands and helping to make tests more reliable and less flaky.
  • Headless Testing
    Playwright supports headless mode for all browsers, which allows for faster test execution and reduced resource consumption, making it ideal for continuous integration systems.
  • Context Isolation
    Playwright introduces the concept of browser contexts, which allows for isolated execution environments within a single browser instance. This enables parallel testing with reduced overhead.
  • Extensive API
    Playwright offers a wide range of APIs that cover user interactions, network interception, and browser automation, providing developers with powerful tools to create robust tests.
  • Network Interception
    Playwright can intercept and modify network requests and responses, allowing for advanced testing scenarios such as mocking APIs and simulating different network conditions.
  • Strong Documentation
    Playwright provides thorough and detailed documentation, making it easier for developers to learn and effectively utilize the framework.
  • Rich Debugging Features
    The framework includes features like verbose logging and debugging capabilities, which facilitate easier troubleshooting and quicker resolution of issues.
  • Support for Multiple Languages
    Playwright supports multiple programming languages, including JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#, and Java, offering flexibility to developers based on their preference.
  • Community and Support
    The Playwright project has an active community and regular updates, ensuring continuous improvement and access to support from both the community and the development team.

Possible disadvantages of Playwright

  • Steeper Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive capabilities and API, Playwright might have a steeper learning curve for beginners compared to some simpler testing tools.
  • Performance Overhead
    While Playwright aims to be efficient, its feature-rich nature can sometimes introduce performance overhead, particularly for complex test suites.
  • Evolving Ecosystem
    The relatively rapid development and updates can occasionally lead to breaking changes, requiring teams to frequently update their test scripts.
  • Less Mature Ecosystem
    Compared to more established tools like Selenium, Playwright's ecosystem is still maturing, which may result in fewer third-party plugins and integrations.
  • Limited Browser Versions
    Playwright's focus on modern browsers and web standards might make it difficult to test older browser versions or niche browsers, potentially limiting test coverage for legacy systems.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running multiple browser contexts and handling extensive network interception can be resource-intensive, requiring more powerful hardware or cloud resources for large test suites.

Analysis of CSS-Tricks

Overall verdict

  • Yes, CSS-Tricks is considered a great resource for both beginner and experienced developers looking to deepen their understanding of CSS and modern web development techniques.

Why this product is good

  • CSS-Tricks is widely appreciated for its comprehensive tutorials, up-to-date articles on the latest CSS trends, and practical examples that help developers enhance their web design skills. The platform covers a wide range of topics not only in CSS but also related technologies like HTML, JavaScript, and web design best practices.

Recommended for

  • Web developers looking to learn CSS in depth
  • Designers wanting to keep up with the latest CSS trends
  • Front-end developers seeking practical examples and solutions
  • Students learning web design fundamentals

Analysis of Playwright

Overall verdict

  • Playwright is a strong choice for browser automation and end-to-end testing due to its reliability, cross-browser support, and extensive features designed to improve test effectiveness and developer productivity.

Why this product is good

  • Playwright is considered good because it provides end-to-end testing capabilities across multiple browsers (Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit) with a single API. It supports multiple languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#, and Java, making it versatile for different developer preferences. It offers headless and headed execution, robust automation capabilities, and improved speed and reliability over other testing frameworks. Additionally, Playwright's features like auto-wait, tracing, and capturing screenshots/videos of test runs make debugging easier.

Recommended for

  • Developers seeking cross-browser automated testing solutions
  • Teams working with multiple programming languages who require versatile testing tools
  • Projects requiring reliable, end-to-end testing capabilities
  • Organizations looking to integrate testing with CI/CD pipelines
  • Developers needing advanced debugging and tracing tools for tests

CSS-Tricks videos

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Playwright videos

Generate tests in VS Code

More videos:

  • Review - Playwright Brittany K. Allen wins 2021 Georgia Engel Comedy Playwriting Prize

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to CSS-Tricks and Playwright)
CSS
100 100%
0% 0
Development
0 0%
100% 100
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Automated Testing
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare CSS-Tricks and Playwright

CSS-Tricks Reviews

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Playwright Reviews

Top Selenium Alternatives
Playwright offers a modern approach with auto-wait APIs and more native support for modern web features compared to Selenium's more manual and broad approach. While Selenium requires explicit waits and has a broader language support, Playwright focuses on simplifying cross-browser testing with its unified API and auto-wait features, which might reduce setup and test...
Source: bugbug.io
Top 5 Selenium Alternatives for Less Maintenance
Appium and Playwright closely resemble Selenium in terms of functionality but offer unique features and advantages. Both of these solutions require coding experience. Leapwork, a commercial vendor, uses Selenium under the hood to power their visual automation approach.
20 Best JavaScript Frameworks For 2023
Playwright, a Node.js library created by Microsoft, is considered one of the best JavaScript frameworks for testing. It automates Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit with a single API. Developers building JavaScript code can use these APIs to build new browser pages, go to URLs, and interact with page elements. Additionally, Playwright can automate Microsoft Edge since it is based...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Playwright should be more popular than CSS-Tricks. It has been mentiond 281 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

CSS-Tricks mentions (136)

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Playwright mentions (281)

  • Data Broken - Opt out of the data broker nightmare with Privotron and Amazon Q Developer
    Privotron is built on a modern Python stack that leverages several powerful libraries for browser automation and configuration management. At its core, the application uses Playwright, a robust browser automation framework that provides cross-browser support and reliable DOM interaction capabilities. The command-line interface is implemented using Click, which enables sophisticated argument parsing and validation... - Source: dev.to / 17 days ago
  • CI/CD guide: store Playwright test results in AWS S3
    In my job, I've encountered a tool called Playwright for this purpose and was greatly impressed by its capabilities. You can program it to do all the things you do manually -- and run them automatically without needing to open a browser. It's no wonder someone took the time to transform such bloatware as a modern browser into something more automation-friendly. Amazing! - Source: dev.to / 24 days ago
  • Design Pattern for Playwright End-to-End Testing
    This article introduces a design pattern for end-to-end testing using Playwright. This pattern is an extension of the Page Object Model, aimed at improving test code readability and reducing the increase in code volume when adding more test scenarios or test data variations. This pattern is adopted by SVQK. A working implementation example and its test results are available in the following repositories:. - Source: dev.to / 29 days ago
  • Why the Python Standard Library Needs a run_sync()
    I recently updated a small script I wrote to automate file uploads to a website with no API. It uses the excellent Playwright project to drive a browser - making the tedious task of filling out forms painless. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • No Dockerfile? No problem! Running Node and Python MCPs with ToolHive
    E.g. If you’re interested in running the Playwright MCP, simply do:. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing CSS-Tricks and Playwright, you can also consider the following products

Flexbox Froggy - A game for learning CSS flexbox

puppeteer - Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium...

CodePen - A front end web development playground.

Selenium - Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that.

CSS Grid Garden - A game for learning CSS grid layout

BrowserCat - Easy, fast, and reliable browser automation and headless browser APIs. The web is messy, but your code shouldn't be.