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fish shell VS Playwright

Compare fish shell VS Playwright and see what are their differences

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fish shell logo fish shell

The friendly interactive shell.

Playwright logo Playwright

Playwright is automation software for Chromium, Firefox, Webkit using the Node.js library having a single API in place.
  • fish shell Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-23
  • Playwright Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-22

fish shell features and specs

  • User-Friendly Syntax
    Fish shell features a more readable and user-friendly syntax compared to traditional shells like Bash or Zsh, making it easier for new users to learn and use.
  • Modern Features
    Fish shell includes out-of-the-box support for modern shell features such as syntax highlighting, autosuggestions, and smart command-line completions, greatly enhancing the user experience.
  • Web-Based Configuration
    Users can configure Fish shell through a web interface, making it more accessible and easier to customize compared to other shells that require manual configuration file edits.
  • Consistent Scripting
    Fish shell uses a consistent scripting language, which reduces the quirks and peculiarities often found in other shell scripting languages.

Possible disadvantages of fish shell

  • Compatibility Issues
    Fish shell is not POSIX compliant, which means scripts written in Fish will not be compatible with other POSIX-compliant shells like Bash or Zsh, potentially causing issues in environments that rely on such standards.
  • Smaller Ecosystem
    Compared to shells like Bash and Zsh, Fish has a smaller ecosystem of plugins, themes, and community support, which could limit available resources and tools.
  • Learning Curve for Experienced Users
    Experienced users of traditional shells like Bash or Zsh might find Fish's different syntax and features take some time to adapt to, potentially reducing initial productivity.
  • Limited Script Portability
    Scripts written in Fish shell are often not portable to other shell environments without significant modification, reducing their usability in multi-shell setups.

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 fish shell

Overall verdict

  • Fish Shell is a highly regarded shell due to its modern features, ease of use, and ability to improve productivity for both beginners and experienced users. Its emphasis on user experience and efficient workflows makes it a popular choice.

Why this product is good

  • Fish Shell is known for its user-friendly design, syntax highlighting, and autosuggestions which enhance the command-line experience. Unlike other shells, it has out-of-the-box configurations that are easy to use, reducing the need for manual setup. The inclusion of advanced tab completions, web-based configuration, and a helpful scripting language also contribute to its appeal.

Recommended for

    Fish Shell is recommended for developers and system administrators looking for an intuitive and powerful command-line shell. It is particularly suitable for users who prefer minimal configuration and appreciate features like autosuggestions and syntax highlighting straight out of the box.

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

fish shell videos

this tank is not overstocked | Fish Tank Review Ep. 1

More videos:

  • Review - Can Female Bettas Live In A Bowl Together? | Fish Tank Review 36
  • Review - Ryan's First Time Catching Fish for Dinner!!!

Playwright videos

Generate tests in VS Code

More videos:

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

Category Popularity

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Blockchain
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Automated Testing
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User comments

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Reviews

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

fish shell 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 fish shell. It has been mentiond 282 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.

fish shell mentions (135)

  • Debugging a problem with my fish shell.
    Recently I made the switch on all my devies to use the great fish Shell. It was amazing since it remembered all the Commands I executed previously, was fast as bash and had inline completion. - Source: dev.to / 4 days ago
  • A short tutorial on using fish shell.
    Follow this to install. Note that this tutorial assume that you are on Linux. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Tools for 2025
    I've probably been using fish shell [0] for close to 10 years now. When I need POSIX compliance or if I need to run a one-off bash command, I just call bash. It's exceedingly rare. Browsing through the documentation for Oils, it seems to be organized in a way that's very confusing. When you open the fish shell website it was two clear buttons for Tutorial and Documentation. [0] https://fishshell.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • TIL: Ghostty — a new and quite promising terminal emulator
    I remember that Julia Evans, whose blog I follow, mentioned a few time that she uses Fish. Also, some days ago I came across this post about Fish rewrite to Rust from C++, which sounds like a cool thing to do. However, I tried it some time ago, and while pretty neat, I wasn't convinced to switch to it completely. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Easy development environments with Nix and Nix flakes!
    The default shell in the above flake adds Valkey, NodeJS 22, the PNPM package manager, and the fish shell to the environment. It also starts Valkey in the background through a shell hook, passing it a custom config (declared via Nix!) and runs fish so we're dropped in the fish shell instead of our login shell. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
View more

Playwright mentions (282)

  • Show HN: Quell – AI QA Agent Working Across Linear, Vercel, Jira, Netlify, Figma
    This is pretty cool - the Jira/Linear integration could save a ton of manual work. How do you handle test data setup and teardown? That's usually where these workflows get messy. For alternatives in this space, there's qawolf (https://qawolf.com) for similar automated testing workflows, or I'm actually building bug0 (https://bug0.com) which also does AI-powered test automation, still in beta. For the more... - Source: Hacker News / 20 days ago
  • 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 / about 1 month 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 / about 1 month 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 / about 1 month 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 2 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing fish shell and Playwright, you can also consider the following products

zsh - The Z shell (Zsh) is a Unix shell that can be used as an interactive login shell and as a powerful command interpreter for shell scripting.

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

GNU Bourne Again SHell - Bash is the shell, or command language interpreter, that will appear in the GNU operating system.

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.

Starship (Shell Prompt) - Starship is the minimal, blazing fast, and extremely customizable prompt for any shell! Shows the information you need, while staying sleek and minimal. Quick installation available for Bash, Fish, ZSH, Ion, and Powershell.

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