Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Visualping VS Playwright

Compare Visualping VS Playwright and see what are their differences

Visualping logo Visualping

Visualping is the easiest to use website checker, webpage change monitoring, website change detector and website change alert software of the web. Read more about Visualping.

Playwright logo Playwright

Playwright is automation software for Chromium, Firefox, Webkit using the Node.js library having a single API in place.
  • Visualping Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-21
  • Playwright Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-22

Visualping features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Visualping offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for users to set up alerts and track changes on web pages without a steep learning curve.
  • Customizability
    The tool allows users to customize the frequency of checks, the area of the web page to monitor, and the type of content changes to be alerted about. This flexibility can be highly beneficial for different use cases.
  • Versatility
    It supports various types of content monitoring including text, visual, and structural changes, making it suitable for diverse requirements such as SEO monitoring, product tracking, and compliance checks.
  • Notification Options
    Visualping provides multiple notification options including email, Slack, API, and browser notifications, catering to different user preferences.
  • Free Tier
    Visualping offers a free tier with limited checks per month, making it accessible for casual or light users.
  • Scale
    Visualping can scale with the needs of the user, offering paid plans that support increased monitoring frequency and additional features.

Possible disadvantages of Visualping

  • Cost
    While there is a free tier, the cost of paid plans can be relatively high for small businesses or individual users who need more frequent checks.
  • False Positives
    There can be occurrences of false positives where users are notified about insignificant changes, such as minor layout adjustments or advertisements on the page.
  • Resource Intensity
    Frequent monitoring can consume significant bandwidth and computational resources, potentially slowing down performance or leading to resource allocation issues.
  • Privacy Concerns
    Depending on the sites being monitored, there may be privacy concerns about storing and processing the data on Visualping's servers.
  • Configuration Complexity for Advanced Features
    Although the basic setup is easy, configuring advanced features and customized monitoring may require a higher level of technical knowledge.
  • Limited Mobile App Support
    Visualping's functionality is primarily web-based, and there is limited support for mobile apps, which could be a downside for users who prefer managing alerts on mobile devices.

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.

Visualping videos

VisualPing: Cool Site for Tracking Website Changes

More videos:

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 Visualping and Playwright)
Monitoring Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Development
0 0%
100% 100
Website Monitoring
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 Visualping and Playwright

Visualping 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 Visualping. It has been mentiond 280 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.

Visualping mentions (74)

  • Show HN: ChangeDetection, monitor any website change
    Https://visualping.io does a nice similar job and is free for moderate personal use. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Summer course tracking
    Could try visualping.io but it's not gonna be as convenient as coursicle. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • PageProbe - Automatic Page Monitor
    You can also monitor up to five webpages for free with VisualPing. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Looking to apply for the RPAS pilot role
    As a belt and braces approach you could try using something like visualping.io (others are available) to monitor the URL https://recruitment.raf.mod.uk/apply/applying-for?c=15&r=293&type=regular and check when the wording "THIS ROLE IS CURRENTLY CLOSED FOR NEW APPLICATIONS. PLEASE REGISTER YOUR INTEREST AND WE WILL BE IN TOUCH WHEN IT REOPENS." disappears, and it will send you an email when it detects a change. Source: about 2 years ago
  • coach outlet increased prices for their 20% sale so its the same price anyway. should i just buy it or wait?
    Also I was using https://visualping.io/ to track the change. Like you can track the change on the button change for that particular page ( like the button being now back in stock instead of grayed out). Source: about 2 years ago
View more

Playwright mentions (280)

  • 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 / 1 day 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 / 6 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 / 12 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 / 12 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 / 14 days ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

Wachete - Track web page changes and get notified. Free Sign-up. Have all data in one place

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

Distill Web Monitor - Distill is a web monitoring tool. It can monitor RSS feeds, a webpage or a part of webpage. Alerts in the form of pop-up, audio or emails can be received.

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.

Distill.io - Distill.io is one of the advanced page monitoring tools used by professionals to monitor dynamic pages, feeds, and iframes.

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