Playwright vs. Cypress vs. TestGrid: Which Should You Choose?

With the increasing need to maintain user satisfaction through excellent functionality and user experience, organizations are constantly seeking more reliable and innovative software testing tools and techniques. Test automation is the preferred method for most companies due to its advantages over manual methods. According to GlobalAppTesting, 24% of companies accept that investing in automation testing helped increase their ROI.

Using the right automation testing tool, software developers can weed out defects in their software and release superior-quality apps. Since the market is cluttered with testing tools, each claiming to be the best, you need to be extra careful about your selection. Wrong choices can delay your software release and lead to unanticipated expenses because of reasons like inaccurate testing or insufficient test coverage.

When it comes to testing tools, Cypress testing has become a popular choice for validating web applications due to its speed and developer-friendly approach. Alongside Cypress, Playwright is also preferred by many organizations to verify their mobile and web applications. But, despite their capabilities and advantages, both these tools have limitations, making them unsuitable for certain testing projects.

This blog will explore the differences between Playwright vs. Cypress. We will also introduce another automation testing platform, TestGrid, and explore its features in detail. This information will help you compare Cypress and Playwright with TestGrid to help you come to a balanced decision.

Knowing All About Playwright

Playwright, developed by Microsoft, is an open-source framework popularly used for end-to-end testing of web applications. It enables testers to automate web interactions and verify the reliability and robustness of their applications.

Here are the key features of Playwright:

1. Device emulation: Playwright allows emulation of various devices, orientations,and screensizes, helping testers ensure their web application is responsive and user-friendly regardless of the device used.

2. Support for programming languages: Its support for popular coding languages like Python, Javascript, and C# gives it an edge over other tools.

3. Cross-browser compatibility: It ensures comprehensive cross-browser testing by allowing you to run tests simultaneously across different browser types.

4. Trace viewer: This feature helps capture all the data needed to investigate a test failure. It offers test execution screenshots, action explorer, live DCM snapshots, and more to testers.

5. No flaky tests: Playwright offers a rich set of introspection events and waits for elements to be actionable before it performs actions. Since there is no need for artificial timeouts, it prevents flaky tests.

Despite such advantages, Playwright has the following drawbacks:

1. Does not support IE11: It does not support Internet Explorer 11, and if your app needs to be tested on this browser, it is obviously not the right option.

2. Less support for mobile apps: It does not offer support for native mobile apps, which could be a disadvantage in specific scenarios.

3. Limited community support: Compared to other established frameworks, Playwright enjoys lesser community support as it is relatively new

Knowing All About Cypress

This robust end-to-end testing platform with simple, developer-friendly features is built specifically for front-end testing. Hence, it is a favorite tool among most web developers and testing teams.

Here are its key features:

1. Easy set-up: Its easy set-up process enables developers to start creating tests quickly, saving their time and effort.

2. Automatic waiting: It automatically waits for elements to become interactive and available before moving to the next step. Hence, it significantly decreases the need for complex synchronization logic or explicit sleep statements, thus making tests more reliable and simpler to write.

3. Testing across domains: Its support for cross-domain testing makes it apt for your app’s interactions with external services

4. Custom commands: It allows the creation of custom commands that let you streamline and reuse test code, improving test script maintainability.

5. Time-travel debugging: This innovative feature allows testers to go back in time to check your application’s state at different points during the testing process, enabling them to identify specific issues.

Cypress has the following limitations:

• Lacks multi-tab support: Cypress does not support testing scenarios involving multi-browser tabs

• Supports only JavaScript: it offers support for only Javascript, thus restricting language flexibility while cresting tests

• Limited iFrame support: Its limited support for iFrame is a drawback for applications that depend on iFrames.

As you can see, Playwright and Cypress both have unique capabilities, but may be unsuitable for certain testing scenarios. We will now examine the features of TestGrid and its suitability for different types of testing.

Automation Testing With TestGrid

TestGrid’s codeless testing functionalities with the utilization of artificial intelligence make it highly beneficial for newcomers and professional testers. It provides a safe, up-to-date, cloud-based testing environment with robust security measures that ensure testing is secure and effective.

Key features of TestGrid:

1. Real device testing: TestGrid enables testers to execute tests on hundreds of real devices in the cloud and ensures that the apps are tested against real scenarios.

2. Parallel testing: It allows users to run several tests at once on various devices, operating systems, browsers, and more, thus saving time while effectively finding issues and glitches.

3. Record-and-Playback: This feature allows users to record app or browser interactions on the go and lets them use and edit it whenever they want.

4. Secure testing: Every device used in testing is cleaned thoroughly to avoid leakage or misuse of the data that is being tested.

5. Cross-browser testing: It lets you perform cross-browser tests across different platforms automatically so that the final products are as functional and user-friendly as possible every time.

6. Unified platform for all testing types: Testers can do visual testing, API testing, mobile testing, and real device testing and get useful performance metrics without integration with third-party applications.

7. Integrates with CI/CD pipelines: TestGrid can be easily integrated with CI/CD solutions, such as Bamboo or Jenkins, and any problem detected is rectified immediately.

8. Easier maintenance: TestGrid’s self-healing feature allows for the auto-healing of codeless tests and minimizes the likelihood of their failure, thus greatly decreasing the amount of effort required for test maintenance.

9. Scalability: With its scalable cloud infrastructure, you can easily scale up or down your testing depending on your needs.

Deciding between Cypress, Playwright, or TestGrid

As described above, Cypress testing and Playwright testing both have particular benefits since they are open-source tools. However, they have some drawbacks, such as not being single platforms that can address all your testing requirements without the assistance of other tools. Therefore, you will have to choose a platform that minimizes these drawbacks and is known for providing outstanding digital experiences repeatedly.

Conclusion

The final decision should be made considering the budget you have, your team’s skills, the necessary features for your testing project, the application you are testing, its requirements, and the automation tool’s compatibility with other tools.

Deciding on the most appropriate tool after considering these factors and comparing their characteristics is challenging. However, once the right choice is made, one is guaranteed the best outcomes with the least resources and can produce a bug-free product that makes the consumers happy.

Source: This blog was originally published at https://medium.com/@gerrycriner/playwright-vs-cypress-vs-testgrid-which-should-you-choose-17ec72055482