Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Playwright VS Sauce Labs

Compare Playwright VS Sauce Labs and see what are their differences

Playwright logo Playwright

Playwright is automation software for Chromium, Firefox, Webkit using the Node.js library having a single API in place.

Sauce Labs logo Sauce Labs

Test mobile or web apps instantly across 700+ browser/OS/device platform combinations - without infrastructure setup.
  • Playwright Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-22
  • Sauce Labs Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-23

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.

Sauce Labs features and specs

  • Extensive Browser and OS Coverage
    Sauce Labs offers a wide range of browser and operating system combinations, allowing for comprehensive cross-browser testing.
  • Real Device Testing
    Provides access to a large number of real mobile devices for testing, ensuring accurate results compared to emulators.
  • Integration with CI/CD Tools
    Seamlessly integrates with popular Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment tools like Jenkins, CircleCI, and Travis CI.
  • Detailed Reporting
    Offers in-depth test reports, screenshots, and videos, which help in debugging and improving the quality of tests.
  • Parallel Test Execution
    Supports running multiple tests in parallel, significantly reducing test execution time and speeding up the development cycle.
  • Scalability
    Highly scalable platform that can cater to both small projects and large enterprises, making it flexible for various needs.

Possible disadvantages of Sauce Labs

  • Cost
    The pricing can be quite high, especially for small teams or individual developers, making it less accessible for budget-constrained projects.
  • Learning Curve
    There can be a steep learning curve for new users who are not familiar with automated testing platforms.
  • Latency Issues
    Some users have reported latency issues and slower test execution times compared to local testing environments.
  • Complexity
    Setting up and configuring tests to run on Sauce Labs can be complex and time-consuming, requiring a good understanding of the platform and automated testing best practices.
  • Dependency on Internet Speed
    As a cloud-based service, the performance can be heavily dependent on the tester's internet speed, potentially affecting test execution and debugging processes.

Playwright videos

Generate tests in VS Code

More videos:

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

Sauce Labs videos

Overview of Sauce Labs

More videos:

  • Review - How an Automated Test Works With Sauce Labs
  • Review - Sauce Labs Analytics

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Playwright and Sauce Labs)
Development
100 100%
0% 0
Website Testing
0 0%
100% 100
Automated Testing
33 33%
67% 67
Browser Testing
35 35%
65% 65

User comments

Share your experience with using Playwright and Sauce Labs. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

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

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...

Sauce Labs Reviews

Top Selenium Alternatives
Sauce Labs is a cloud-based platform that offers automated testing tools for web and mobile applications. It provides a secure and scalable environment for running tests across a wide range of browsers and operating systems. With features like parallel testing, real device testing, and live debugging, Sauce Labs focuses on improving test execution times and overall efficiency.
Source: bugbug.io
Top 20 Best Automation Testing Tools in 2018 (Comprehensive List)
Sauce Labs is a selenium cloud-based solution that offers automated testing over cross-browsers and multiple platforms. It has support for both mobile and desktop apps. It is known for significantly accelerating test cycles.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Playwright seems to be a lot more popular than Sauce Labs. While we know about 279 links to Playwright, we've tracked only 17 mentions of Sauce Labs. 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.

Playwright mentions (279)

  • 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 / 3 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 / 8 days 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 / 9 days ago
  • SVQK - A Web Application Development Platform Using Svelte + Quarkus
    This command not only sets up the tools and scripts but also runs tests to verify that the tools and applications work as expected. The tests include unit tests for backend components, integration tests for manipulating Web APIs using a Rest Client, and end-to-end tests for frontend operations using Playwright. This setup command can be executed both on a local PC and in a CI environment. - Source: dev.to / 11 days ago
  • How to Chat with Gemini 2.5 Pro from VSCode via AI Studio (Free and Unlimited)
    My first idea was to run an instance of Chrome and control it using Playwright. So I created a file browser.ts and wrote the following code to:. - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
View more

Sauce Labs mentions (17)

  • 11 Most Popular Tools for Logging and Monitoring API Calls
    Sauce Labs used to be called API Fortress, and under that name, it generated a bit of a reputation as a cloud-based REST API monitoring solution. Setting up Sauce Labs for monitoring involves establishing secure connections to ensure data integrity and security. Sauce Labs continues this success by providing testing, monitoring, and reporting, but for those looking principally for API log tooling, Sauce Labs can... - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Top 10 iOS Automation Testing Tools for 2025 (with Key Features)
    #2 SauceLabs SauceLabs also offers a cloud-based platform for testing iOS apps, as well as capabilities to build, organize, and run tests for delivering high-quality applications. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Free Cross Browser Testing Tools to pick in 2025
    5. Sauce Labs (Free Plan) Sauce Labs provides a cloud-based testing platform that includes real device testing and supports Selenium, Appium, and other popular automation frameworks. While its free tier limits access to testing minutes and device options, it’s ideal for smaller testing needs and early-phase bug hunting. Paid plans enable larger teams to scale with access to additional device environments. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • 🛑 Stop resizing your browser: improve testing for responsiveness
    Platforms like Browserstack or SauceLabs offer virtual instances of real devices and browsers for manual and end-to-end testing. Caveat: subscriptions cost money and are on a per-seat basis. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • React Native Testing Options Overview
    Appium is an open-source test automation framework. You can use it with native, hybrid, and mobile web apps. It drives iOS and Android apps using the WebDriver protocol. Appium is sponsored by Sauce Labs and a community of open source developers. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Playwright and Sauce Labs, you can also consider the following products

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

BrowserStack - BrowserStack is a software testing platform for developers to comprehensively test websites and mobile applications for quality.

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.

LambdaTest - Perform Web Testing on 2000+ Browsers & OS

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

TestComplete - TestComplete Desktop, Web, and Mobile helps you create repeatable and accurate automated tests across multiple devices, platforms, and environments easily and quickly.