Playwright is a free tool from Microsoft that makes testing websites easier. It lets you test on different browsers using several programming languages. With features like running tests without opening a browser window, testing multiple things at once, and checking network requests, Playwright is great for modern development. This playwright testing tutorial will help you set up Playwright, write and run tests, and manage them effectively. Whether you are just starting with Playwright or want to improve your testing skills. This playwright tutorial will show you how to use Playwright effectively.

Introduction to Playwright Testing

Playwright is an open-source tool by Microsoft for testing web applications across different browsers like Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. It works with languages like JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#, and Java, making it flexible for developers and testers. Playwright allows you to automate tests, run them faster in headless mode (without a browser window), and test several things at once. It also has powerful features like checking network requests and simulating different devices. This makes Playwright a great choice for ensuring web apps work well and are reliable for helping teams to test more efficiently. For those interested in learning more, a Playwright testing tutorial can guide you through using its features effectively, helping teams to test more efficiently.

Why Use Playwright?

Before diving into the technical details, let’s understand why the playwright framework is a game-changer in the world of automated testing:

  • Cross-Browser Testing: It works with Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit, so you can test your web apps on different browsers using the same code.
  • Headless Mode: The playwright runs tests without opening a browser window, making them faster by skipping the UI.
  • Language Support: It supports many programming languages, so you can choose the one your team knows best.
  • Parallel Testing: You can run multiple tests at the same time with Playwright, saving time on test execution.
  • Rich API: It has powerful tools to do things like check network traffic, take screenshots, and simulate different devices.

Getting Started with Playwright

Getting started with Playwright involves setting up your environment, installing Playwright, and writing your first test. Here is a quick playwright automation tutorial to help you get started:

1. Setting Up the Environment

Before you start, make sure you have Node.js installed on your machine. You can check if Node.js is installed by running the following command in your terminal:

node -v

If Node.js is not installed, download and install it from here.

2. Installing Playwright

To install Playwright, run the following command in your terminal:

npm init playwright@latest

This command will initialize a new project with Playwright, download the necessary binaries, and create a basic project structure.

3. Creating Your First Test

After installation, you can create your first test. Here is an example of a simple test in this playwright testing tutorial:

const { test, expect } = require('@playwright/test');

test('basic test', async ({ page }) => {

await page.goto('https://example.com');

const title = await page.title();

expect(title).toBe('Example Domain');

});

This test navigates to https://example.com, grabs the page title, and checks if it matches the Example Domain.

4. Running Your Test

To run your test, use the following command:

npx playwright test

This will execute the test and provide you with the results in the terminal.

5. Understanding the Playwright Test Runner

The Playwright test runner is powerful and comes with many features such as parallel testing, automatic retries, and test fixtures. For a comprehensive guide on these features and how to use them effectively, check out the Playwright testing tutorial and the Playwright's documentation.

6. Recording Tests (Optional)

Playwright also allows you to record tests, which can help you create tests quickly:

npx playwright codegen https://example.com

This command opens a browser where you can interact with the website. The playwright will generate the corresponding code automatically.

7. Running Tests in Different Browsers

By default, Playwright runs tests in Chromium. However, you can run tests in other browsers like Firefox or WebKit:

npx playwright test --project=firefox

npx playwright test --project=webkit

8. Continuous Integration (CI) Setup

Playwright can be easily integrated into your CI/CD pipelines. It supports a variety of CI providers such as GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, and more.

9. Learning More

To dive deeper into Playwright, you can explore the following resources:

This playwright's example should give you a good start with it.

Advanced Playwright Concepts

You can reuse Playwright and Browser instances to improve performance. But it is better to run each test in a new BrowserContext. To keep the browser state separate as well as avoid issues between tests. For detailed guidance on this and other best practices, read this Playwright testing tutorial carefully.

JUnit​

In JUnit, you can set up Playwright and Browser in the @BeforeAll method and close them in @AfterAll. This way, all the tests share the same Browser, but each test gets its own BrowserContext and Page.

package org.example;

import com.microsoft.playwright.Browser;

import com.microsoft.playwright.BrowserContext;

import com.microsoft.playwright.Page;

import com.microsoft.playwright.Playwright;

import org.junit.jupiter.api.*;

import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;

import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertTrue;

public class TestExample {

// Shared between all tests in this class.

static Playwright playwright;

static Browser browser;

// New instance for each test method.

BrowserContext context;

Page page;

@BeforeAll

static void launchBrowser() {

playwright = Playwright.create();

browser = playwright.chromium().launch();

}

@AfterAll

static void closeBrowser() {

playwright.close();

}

@BeforeEach

void createContextAndPage() {

context = browser.newContext();

page = context.newPage();

}

@AfterEach

void closeContext() {

context.close();

}

@Test

void shouldClickButton() {

page.navigate("data:text/html,<script>var result;</script><button onclick='result=\"Clicked\"'>Go</button>");

page.locator("button").click();

assertEquals("Clicked", page.evaluate("result"));

}

@Test

void shouldCheckTheBox() {

page.setContent("<input id='checkbox' type='checkbox'></input>");

page.locator("input").check();

assertTrue((Boolean) page.evaluate("() => window['checkbox'].checked"));

}

@Test

void shouldSearchWiki() {

page.navigate("https://www.wikipedia.org/");

page.locator("input[name=\"search\"]").click();

page.locator("input[name=\"search\"]").fill("playwright");

page.locator("input[name=\"search\"]").press("Enter");

assertEquals("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playwright", page.url());

}

}

Check out the new JUnit integration that makes it easier to set up Playwright objects and other cool stuff automatically during testing.

Running Tests in Parallel​

By default, JUnit runs all tests one after the other on a single thread. Starting with JUnit 5.3, you can make tests run in parallel to save time. However, using the same Playwright objects in multiple threads isn't safe. It is best to create a separate Playwright instance for each thread and only use it within that thread. So, here is in this playwright testing tutorial how you can set up multiple test classes to run in parallel.

Use the @TestInstance(TestInstance.Lifecycle.PER_CLASS) annotation in JUnit. To create a single instance of a test class for all its test methods (instead of creating a new instance for each method by default). You can store Playwright and Browser objects as instance fields, so they are shared between tests in that class. Each test class will have its own Playwright instance.

// Subclasses will inherit PER_CLASS behavior.

@TestInstance(TestInstance.Lifecycle.PER_CLASS)

class TestFixtures {

 // Shared between all tests in the class.

Playwright playwright;

Browser browser;

@BeforeAll

void launchBrowser() {

playwright = Playwright.create();

browser = playwright.chromium().launch();

}

@AfterAll

void closeBrowser() {

playwright.close();

}

 // New instance for each test method.

BrowserContext context;

Page page;

@BeforeEach

void createContextAndPage() {

context = browser.newContext();

page = context.newPage();

}

@AfterEach

void closeContext() {

context.close();

}

}

class Test1 extends TestFixtures {

@Test

void shouldClickButton() {

page.navigate("data:text/html,<script>var result;</script><button onclick='result=\"Clicked\"'>Go</button>");

page.locator("button").click();

assertEquals("Clicked", page.evaluate("result"));

}

@Test

void shouldCheckTheBox() {

page.setContent("<input id='checkbox' type='checkbox'></input>");

page.locator("input").check();

assertTrue((Boolean) page.evaluate("() => window['checkbox'].checked"));

}

@Test

void shouldSearchWiki() {

page.navigate("https://www.wikipedia.org/");

page.locator("input[name=\"search\"]").click();

page.locator("input[name=\"search\"]").fill("playwright");

page.locator("input[name=\"search\"]").press("Enter");

assertEquals("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playwright", page.url());

}

}

class Test2 extends TestFixtures {

@Test

void shouldReturnInnerHTML() {

page.setContent("<div>hello</div>");

assertEquals("hello", page.innerHTML("css=div"));

}

@Test

void shouldClickButton() {

Page popup = page.waitForPopup(() -> {

page.evaluate("window.open('about:blank');");

});

assertEquals("about:blank", popup.url());

}

}

Set up JUnit to run tests within each class one after the other and run multiple classes at the same time on different threads. The number of threads should be half the number of CPU cores.

junit.jupiter.execution.parallel.enabled = true

junit.jupiter.execution.parallel.mode.default = same_thread

junit.jupiter.execution.parallel.mode.classes.default = concurrent

junit.jupiter.execution.parallel.config.strategy=dynamic

junit.jupiter.execution.parallel.config.dynamic.factor=0.5

Using Gradle​

You have the option to utilize a Gradle build setup script, which can be written in Groovy or Kotlin.

plugins {

application

id 'java'

}

repositories {

mavenCentral()

}

dependencies {

implementation 'com.microsoft.playwright:playwright:1.46.0'

}

application {

mainClass = 'org.example.App'

}

// Usage: ./gradlew playwright --args="help"

task playwright(type: JavaExec) {

classpath sourceSets.test.runtimeClasspath

mainClass = 'com.microsoft.playwright.CLI'

}

test {

useJUnitPlatform()

}

Tests can then be launched as follows:

./gradlew run

Also, Playwright command line tools can be run with :

./gradlew playwright --args="help"

TestNG​

In TestNG, you can set up Playwright and Browser in the @BeforeClass method and close them in @AfterClass. This means all test methods will share the same Browser, but each test will have its own BrowserContext and Page. For a detailed walkthrough of these practices, focus on the Playwright testing tutorial carefully.

package org.example;

import com.microsoft.playwright.Browser;

import com.microsoft.playwright.BrowserContext;

import com.microsoft.playwright.Page;

import com.microsoft.playwright.Playwright;

import org.testng.annotations.*;

import static org.testng.Assert.assertEquals;

import static org.testng.Assert.assertTrue;

public class TestExample {

// Shared between all tests in this class.

Playwright playwright;

Browser browser;

// New instance for each test method.

BrowserContext context;

Page page;

@BeforeClass

void launchBrowser() {

playwright = Playwright.create();

browser = playwright.chromium().launch();

}

@AfterClass

void closeBrowser() {

playwright.close();

}

@BeforeMethod

void createContextAndPage() {

context = browser.newContext();

page = context.newPage();

}

@AfterMethod

void closeContext() {

context.close();

}

@Test

void shouldClickButton() {

page.navigate("data:text/html,<script>var result;</script><button onclick='result=\"Clicked\"'>Go</button>");

page.locator("button").click();

assertEquals("Clicked", page.evaluate("result"));

}

@Test

void shouldCheckTheBox() {

page.setContent("<input id='checkbox' type='checkbox'></input>");

page.locator("input").check();

assertTrue((Boolean) page.evaluate("() => window['checkbox'].checked"));

}

@Test

void shouldSearchWiki() {

page.navigate("https://www.wikipedia.org/");

page.locator("input[name=\"search\"]").click();

page.locator("input[name=\"search\"]").fill("playwright");

page.locator("input[name=\"search\"]").press("Enter");

assertEquals("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playwright", page.url());

}

}

Playwright Automation Framework

Playwright can be used as part of a bigger automation system, which makes it useful for testing all aspects of software in the development and deployment process.

Setting Up CI/CD Integration: Playwright works well with CI/CD tools like Jenkins, CircleCI, and GitHub Actions. For GitHub Actions, just create a file named .github/workflows/playwright.yml to set it up:

name: Playwright Tests

on: [push]

jobs:

test:

runs-on: ubuntu-latest

steps:

- uses: actions/checkout@v2

- name: Set up Node.js

uses: actions/setup-node@v2

with:

node-version: '14'

- run: npm install

- run: npx playwright install --with-deps

- run: npm test

Once everything is set up, your Playwright tests will run on their own every time you make changes to your code and save them in your online storage space.

Playwright for Different Programming Languages

This playwright testing tutorial mainly covers JavaScript, but Playwright also works with other languages like Python, C#, and Java.

Playwright Python Example

Playwright provides Python developers with an interface that is similar to the one used in JavaScript.

  • Install Playwright for Python:
pip install playwright
  • Write a Simple Test in Python:
from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:

browser = p.chromium.launch()

page = browser.new_page()

page.goto('https://example.com')

print(page.title()) # Outputs "Example Domain"

browser.close()
  • Run the Python Test:
python example_test.py

Playwright Tools and Integrations

Playwright is compatible with various tools and libraries that enhance its functionality.

  • Test Reporting: You can use Playwright with tools like Allure and Mochawesome to create detailed test reports.
  • Visual Testing: The playwright works with visual testing tools like Applitools to check for UI changes.
  • API Testing: It can be used with libraries like Axios or SuperTest to test APIs.

Best Practices for Playwright Testing

To ensure your Playwright tests are efficient and maintainable, follow these best practices:

  • Modularize Your Tests: Split complex tests into smaller, reusable functions or modules.
  • Use Page Objects: Use the Page Object Model (POM) to separate test actions from page details.
  • Leverage Playwright’s API: Use Playwright’s API for tasks like mocking networks, emulating devices, and testing multiple tabs.
  • Keep Tests Independent: Make sure each test can run on its own to avoid flaky results.

Playwright vs Other Testing Frameworks

When comparing Playwright to other testing frameworks, focus on features, how easy it is to use, and support for different browsers. As well as how well it integrates with other tools. So, here is a comparison of Playwright with some popular testing frameworks in this playwright testing tutorial:

Playwright vs Selenium

1. Cross-Browser Support

  • Playwright: Works with Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. Same API for all.
  • Selenium: Supports Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Needs separate browser drivers.

2. API and Language Support

  • Playwright: Modern API. Works with JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#, and Java.
  • Selenium: Traditional API. Supports Java, Python, Ruby, C#, and JavaScript.

3. Parallel Execution

  • Playwright: Built-in support for running tests at the same time and managing test suites.
  • Selenium: Needs extra setup like Selenium Grid for parallel tests.

4. Auto-Waiting

  • Playwright: Automatically waits for elements to be ready.
  • Selenium: Requires manual setup with explicit waits.

5. Network Interception

  • Playwright: Built-in tools for intercepting and mocking network requests.
  • Selenium: Needs external tools or proxies for network handling.

Playwright vs. Cypress

1. Architecture

  • Playwright: Direct browser control, runs in headless or full mode.
  • Cypress: Runs inside the browser with a GUI, and interacts in the same context.

2. Cross-Browser Support

  • Playwright: Supports Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit.
  • Cypress: Mainly supports Chromium-based browsers, expanding support.

3. API and Language Support

  • Playwright: Modern API for multiple languages (JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#, Java).
  • Cypress: Uses only JavaScript/TypeScript.

4. Testing Features

  • Playwright: Auto-waiting, network interception, multi-page support.
  • Cypress: Time-travel debugging, automatic waiting, network stubbing, limited browser support.

5. Test Execution and Reporting

  • Playwright: Supports parallel testing, detailed tracing, and video recording.
  • Cypress: Built-in video recording, the dashboard for test results.

Playwright vs. Puppeteer

1. Cross-Browser Support

  • Playwright: Works with Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit.
  • Puppeteer: Mainly supports Chromium. Separate library for Firefox (less maintained).

2. API Features

  • Playwright: Advanced features like network interception, multi-page support, and mobile emulation.
  • Puppeteer: Simpler API, focused on Chromium.

3. Community and Ecosystem

  • Playwright: Developed by Microsoft's growing community.
  • Puppeteer: Developed by Google, the strong Chromium community.

Playwright vs. TestCafe

1. Cross-Browser Support

  • Playwright: Supports Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit.
  • TestCafe: Works with Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and mobile browsers.

2. API and Language Support

  • Playwright: Modern API, supports JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#, and Java.
  • TestCafe: Uses JavaScript/TypeScript.

3. Parallel Execution

  • Playwright: Native support for parallel test runs and sharding.
  • TestCafe: It also supports parallel test execution across browsers.

4. Test Reporting and Integration

  • Playwright: Good integration with CI/CD, detailed reports, and tracing.
  • TestCafe: Built-in reporting, smooth CI/CD integration.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

While moving forward in this playwright automation tutorial it is important to know even with this robust framework, you might encounter issues. Here is how to troubleshoot common problems:

  • Browser Launch Failures: Ensure that your environment has all the necessary dependencies. Running npx playwright install --with-deps often resolves such issues.
  • Timeout Errors: If your tests are timing out, increase the default timeout setting in your configuration file.
  • Flaky Tests: Use Playwright’s retry mechanism to re-run failed tests and reduce flakiness.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Playwright is a powerful tool for testing web applications, making running tests across different browsers easier. It works with multiple programming languages and integrates well with CI/CD tools. This playwright testing tutorial has walked you through setting up Playwright and running tests by using its features and best practices. As well as you will be able to test your web apps effectively. With more practice, you'll be ready to tackle even the toughest testing challenges confidently.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q. Is Playwright a tool or framework?

Ans. The playwright is both a tool and a framework. It offers APIs for automating web testing, which is great for developers and QA engineers. It also includes a testing framework with features like test runners, parallel execution, and reporting, making it a complete solution for end-to-end testing.

Q. Does Playwright require coding?

Ans. Yes, Playwright needs coding. It is made for developers and QA engineers who can write code to automate web tests. But its API is easy to use and well-documented. So even people with less coding experience can use it.

Q. How many days are required to learn Playwright?

Ans. How quickly you learn Playwright depends on your background. If you know similar tools like Selenium or Cypress, you might get good at Playwright in a week. In fact, for beginners, it could take a couple of weeks to learn the basics and about a month to handle more complex tests.