Playwright vs Protractor

Overview

Protractor

Stacks2.2K

Followers543

Votes33

GitHub Stars8.7K

Forks2.3K

Playwright

Stacks616

Followers587

Votes81

GitHub Stars79.0K

Forks4.8K

Playwright vs Protractor: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore the key differences between Playwright and Protractor, two popular tools for browser automation. Playwright and Protractor have different features and capabilities that make them suitable for different scenarios and use cases.

Programming Language Support: Playwright supports multiple programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, and C#. On the other hand, Protractor is primarily focused on JavaScript and is built on top of the Node.js platform. This makes Playwright more versatile as it allows developers to write tests in their preferred programming language.
Browser Support: Playwright supports a wide range of browsers including Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. It provides a consistent API across different browsers, allowing developers to write browser-agnostic tests. Protractor, on the other hand, was initially designed for Angular applications and works primarily with Chrome and Firefox browsers.
Headless and Non-Headless Execution: Playwright allows developers to run tests in both headful and headless modes, giving them the flexibility to choose between visible or invisible execution. Protractor also supports headless execution, but it was primarily designed for running tests in a headful mode.
Concurrency: Playwright provides built-in support for parallel execution of tests, enabling faster test runs by running tests in multiple browsers or instances simultaneously. Protractor, on the other hand, does not have built-in support for parallel execution and requires additional tools or configurations to achieve parallelism.
Page Objects and Element Locators: Playwright has a rich set of APIs and functionalities for interacting with web elements, offering more flexibility in defining and locating elements on a web page. Protractor, being built on top of WebDriverJS, uses a different set of element locators and has a simpler approach to page objects.
Maintenance and Active Development: Playwright is actively maintained by Microsoft and has a strong community backing. It is regularly updated with new features and improvements. Protractor, on the other hand, has entered maintenance mode and is no longer actively developed by Google. While it is still a widely used tool, its future updates and support can be uncertain.

In summary, Playwright and Protractor differ in terms of programming language support, browser compatibility, headless execution options, concurrency capabilities, element interaction APIs, and maintenance status. Developers should consider their specific requirements and project needs to choose the tool that best fits their use cases.

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Advice on Protractor, Playwright

Yildiz

testmanager/automation tester at medicalservice

May 12, 2020

Needs adviceon

AngularJS

TypeScript

Cypress

In the company I will be building test automation framework and my new company develops apps mainly using AngularJS/TypeScript. I was planning to build Protractor-Jasmine framework but a friend of mine told me about Cypress and heard that its users are very satisfied with it. I am trying to understand the capabilities of Cypress and as the final goal to differentiate these two tools. Can anyone advice me on this in a nutshell pls...

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Detailed Comparison

Protractor	Playwright
Protractor is an end-to-end test framework for Angular and AngularJS applications. Protractor runs tests against your application running in a real browser, interacting with it as a user would.	It is a Node library to automate the Chromium, WebKit and Firefox browsers with a single API. It enables cross-browser web automation that is ever-green, capable, reliable and fast.
Test Like a User; For Angular Apps; Automatic Waiting	Node library; Headless supported; Enables cross-browser web automation; Improved automated UI testing
Statistics
GitHub Stars 8.7K	GitHub Stars 79.0K
GitHub Forks 2.3K	GitHub Forks 4.8K
Stacks 2.2K	Stacks 616
Followers 543	Followers 587
Votes 33	Votes 81
Pros & Cons
Pros 9 Easy setup 8 Quick tests implementation 6 Flexible 5 Open source 5 Promise support Cons 4 Limited	Pros 15 Cross browser 11 Open source 9 Test Runner with Playwright/test 7 Well documented 7 Promise based Cons 12 Less help 3 Node based 2 Does not execute outside of browser
Integrations
AngularJS Angular	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Protractor, Playwright?

BrowserStack

BrowserStack is the leading test platform built for developers & QAs to expand test coverage, scale & optimize testing with cross-browser, real device cloud, accessibility, visual testing, test management, and test observability.

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. Boring web-based administration tasks can (and should!) also be automated as well.

Sauce Labs

Cloud-based automated testing platform enables developers and QEs to perform functional, JavaScript unit, and manual tests with Selenium or Appium on web and mobile apps. Videos and screenshots for easy debugging. Secure and CI-ready.

Mocha

Mocha is a feature-rich JavaScript test framework running on node.js and the browser, making asynchronous testing simple and fun. Mocha tests run serially, allowing for flexible and accurate reporting, while mapping uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases.

LambdaTest

LambdaTest platform provides secure, scalable and insightful test orchestration for website, and mobile app testing. Customers at different points in their DevOps lifecycle can leverage Automation and/or Manual testing on LambdaTest.

Jasmine

Jasmine is a Behavior Driven Development testing framework for JavaScript. It does not rely on browsers, DOM, or any JavaScript framework. Thus it's suited for websites, Node.js projects, or anywhere that JavaScript can run.

Karma

Karma is not a testing framework, nor an assertion library. Karma just launches a HTTP server, and generates the test runner HTML file you probably already know from your favourite testing framework. So for testing purposes you can use pretty much anything you like.

Jest

Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.

Cypress

Cypress is a front end automated testing application created for the modern web. Cypress is built on a new architecture and runs in the same run-loop as the application being tested. As a result Cypress provides better, faster, and more reliable testing for anything that runs in a browser. Cypress works on any front-end framework or website.

Rainforest QA

Rainforest gives you the reliability of a QA team and the speed of automation, without the hassle of managing a team or the pain of writing automated tests.

Related Comparisons

Playwright vs Protractor: What are the differences?

Introduction

Programming Language Support: Playwright supports multiple programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, and C#. On the other hand, Protractor is primarily focused on JavaScript and is built on top of the Node.js platform. This makes Playwright more versatile as it allows developers to write tests in their preferred programming language.
Browser Support: Playwright supports a wide range of browsers including Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. It provides a consistent API across different browsers, allowing developers to write browser-agnostic tests. Protractor, on the other hand, was initially designed for Angular applications and works primarily with Chrome and Firefox browsers.
Headless and Non-Headless Execution: Playwright allows developers to run tests in both headful and headless modes, giving them the flexibility to choose between visible or invisible execution. Protractor also supports headless execution, but it was primarily designed for running tests in a headful mode.
Concurrency: Playwright provides built-in support for parallel execution of tests, enabling faster test runs by running tests in multiple browsers or instances simultaneously. Protractor, on the other hand, does not have built-in support for parallel execution and requires additional tools or configurations to achieve parallelism.
Page Objects and Element Locators: Playwright has a rich set of APIs and functionalities for interacting with web elements, offering more flexibility in defining and locating elements on a web page. Protractor, being built on top of WebDriverJS, uses a different set of element locators and has a simpler approach to page objects.
Maintenance and Active Development: Playwright is actively maintained by Microsoft and has a strong community backing. It is regularly updated with new features and improvements. Protractor, on the other hand, has entered maintenance mode and is no longer actively developed by Google. While it is still a widely used tool, its future updates and support can be uncertain.

Playwright vs Protractor

Overview

Playwright vs Protractor: What are the differences?