When we built QA Wolf, we weren’t just choosing a test framework. We were deciding on the type of service we could offer our customers. That decision shaped everything from the architecture of our test infrastructure to how we write, maintain, and scale coverage. The choice came down to two major contenders in modern E2E automation: Cypress and Playwright.
Cypress had the advantage in terms of time on the market and community size. Playwright had technical depth and enabled the development velocity we needed. We went with Playwright—and here’s why.
Cypress handles the basics. Playwright handles the rest
Cypress is popular for a reason. It’s fast to install, simple to write, and easy to run. For single-page apps or basic workflows that stick to a single domain and user session, Cypress works well. The UI is polished, and the local dev experience is comfortable for frontend teams used to writing tests in JavaScript.
But those strengths become liabilities when you want to automate certain complex journeys. Cypress runs in the same process as the application and uses a proxy architecture that introduces rigid boundaries. Tests that span multiple tabs, switch browser contexts, or involve extensions and downloads require heavy workarounds or can’t be automated due to architectural limitations. These are the kinds of tests our customers need, especially as they scale beyond initial coverage and start automating full user journeys.
Playwright avoids these constraints by design. Its out-of-process architecture allows it to automate multiple browser instances, simulate user interactions across different contexts, and run tests that interact with real browser features, like camera permissions, download handling, and clipboard access, which are limited in Cypress. Playwright is built for complexity. It gives us the flexibility to cover the tests our customers actually need, not just the ones that fit a narrow model.
Simple APIs reduce risk and ramp-up time
One of the less obvious—but most important—advantages of Playwright is its API design. It uses standard JavaScript promises, avoids custom chaining methods, and mirrors how developers write asynchronous code elsewhere in the stack. That consistency makes the code easier to read, reason about, and debug.
Cypress, by contrast, introduces its own layer of syntax. Developers have to learn how Cypress manages control flow, how it scopes variables, and how to avoid anti-patterns like hard-coded waits. These aren’t insurmountable problems, but they increase onboarding time and raise the cost of code maintenance, especially as the team grows or shifts responsibilities.
We use Playwright not just because it’s easier to write tests, but because it’s easier to change them. Our tests need to be portable and understandable. When something breaks, we know where to look and how to fix it.
Playwright’s design choices make tests more stable
Test reliability isn’t just about flakiness—it’s about build stability, consistent environments, and clear failure states. Cypress’s plugin-based approach gives teams flexibility, but that flexibility comes with risk. Plugins can conflict with each other or break when new versions are released. The cumulative build complexity adds overhead to every CI run, slowing builds, increasing setup time, and introducing additional potential points of failure.
Playwright avoids this entirely by integrating features directly into its core. That minimizes dependencies, reduces version friction, and lowers the risk of unexpected interactions. At last count, Cypress had more than 160 dependencies in a standard install. Playwright had one.
Fewer moving parts means fewer surprises. That matters when you’re running hundreds or thousands of tests per day. It’s not just about keeping the green lights on—it’s about ensuring your team can trust the results and move faster without second-guessing the infra.
Speed matters—especially when you’re running at scale
Playwright doesn’t just run reliably. It runs fast. Its WebSocket-based architecture provides near-native access to browser APIs, thereby avoiding the proxy model that Cypress and other frameworks use. That difference shows up in comparative benchmarks: both Applitools and LambdaTest have reported test run times up to four times faster in Playwright than in Cypress, depending on the configuration and use case.
Those numbers may sound small on a per-test basis, but they add up fast. If you’re running 500 tests per build, shaving 200 milliseconds off each one means saving over a minute and a half per build. Multiply that by every deployment across every team, and the performance gains turn into real productivity. Less waiting. More iteration. Fewer bottlenecks.
Community is important, but momentum is shifting
Cypress has the advantage of history. It’s been around longer, and you’ll find years of tutorials, GitHub issues, and Stack Overflow threads to help solve everyday problems. That library of tribal knowledge can be helpful, especially if your team is just getting started.
Community support looks up differently today than it did a few years ago. Playwright dominates Discord servers, Reddit posts, GitHub Discussions, and AI tools like GitHub Copilot. That shift matters. Cypress’ community may be large, but it’s not necessarily active in the places developers go now.
And most importantly, it’s shipping fast, supporting more browsers, languages, and use cases with every release. Playwright passed Cypress in weekly NPM downloads in mid-2024 and continues to grow. As of 2025, it’s approaching 5 million installs a week.
Sure, GitHub stars and download counts aren’t everything. But they do signal where developer attention is headed—and right now, it’s pointed at Playwright.
Feature depth supports broader use cases
Beyond the core technical differences, Playwright offers broader support for the types of tests we write:
- Cross-browser coverage: Playwright supports Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit—all natively. That provides us with absolute parity testing across the entire browser ecosystem, not just Chrome derivatives.
- Mobile emulation: We can simulate specific devices, change user agents, and test touch input. Cypress can’t natively do any of this.
- Test runners: Playwright works with a variety of runners, including Jest, Mocha, Jasmine, and AVA. Cypress only supports Mocha.
- Multi-language bindings: While we write our tests in JavaScript, Playwright also supports Python, Java, and .NET. That flexibility can be helpful for teams working across stacks or migrating coverage.
These are increasingly common requirements for teams trying to test across real-world scenarios.
When Cypress might be the right call
For smaller teams starting from scratch, Cypress remains a viable option. The local dev experience is polished, the syntax is familiar, and the interactive test runner makes debugging intuitive. Its paid Dashboard adds historical insights like flake tracking and failure trends.
Playwright has caught up in most areas in the debugging arena, with built-in visual comparisons, a detailed trace viewer, and robust CI reporting. But it still lacks Cypress’s nifty live, step-through interface. If your team prioritizes in-browser debugging or needs to demo tests to non-engineers, Cypress has the edge.
If you’re hiring an in-house QA engineer and want them to ramp quickly with strong community support, Cypress could be a better fit.
Why we went with Playwright—and what that gives our customers
Ultimately, our decision wasn’t about developer preferences or ecosystem size. It was about building a service that can handle real-world tests at scale. Playwright gives us the reliability, performance, and control we need to write and maintain hundreds of tests for each customer. It handles complexity without workarounds. It keeps dependency count low and builds stably. And it runs fast—really fast—so our customers get results when they need them.
We invested in Playwright because it fits our specific use case and allows us to deliver the kind of zero-effort QA experience that our customers need to ship with confidence.
If you’re weighing frameworks or planning out your automation strategy, we’re happy to geek out with you on frameworks.
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