What are the differences between Playwright and Cypress for end-to-end testing?

Answer

Sure, let's compare Playwright and Cypress!

Playwright

Playwright is a powerful tool for cross-browser testing. It supports Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit browsers. Plus, it has built-in support for mobile devices. You can run tests in parallel across multiple browsers, which is a huge time-saver.

Here's an example of how you can use Playwright to run a test in Chromium:

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

test('basic test', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://ray.run');
  const title = await page.title();
  expect(title).toBe('Ray');
});

Playwright also offers debugging tools. You can use live debugging in VSCode and the Playwright inspector to troubleshoot your tests.

Cypress

Cypress is loved for its simplicity. Its API is straightforward, which makes it a great choice if you're new to end-to-end testing. Cypress also has a time-travel debugging feature. This lets you see what happened at each step of your test, which can be really helpful for debugging.

Both frameworks have their strengths. It really depends on what you're looking for in an end-to-end testing tool. Make sure to evaluate your specific needs before choosing one over the other.

For a more detailed comparison, check out this blog post.