Selenium, Playwright and Cypress: what is a fair comparison?
Options
- Selenium is mature; Playwright and Cypress auto-wait (Correct option)
- They are identical in every feature that they have
- Selenium is a database for storing test results
- Cypress supports every programming language there is
Answer
Selenium: mature, many languages and browsers, W3C standard; Playwright and Cypress: newer, with auto-waiting and developer-friendly tooling (Cypress runs in the browser, JS only)
Why
- Selenium WebDriver: oldest and most widespread, supports Java, Python, C#, JS and all major browsers; very common in enterprise Java shops; you handle waits yourself.
- Playwright (Microsoft): multi-browser, multi-language, built-in auto-waiting, tracing, fast.
- Cypress: JavaScript/TypeScript only, runs inside the browser, great debugging, more limited cross-tab and cross-browser support.
Selenium is still very common in Java teams, so know WebDriver, waits, locators and POM.
Remember
Selenium = standard and flexible; Playwright/Cypress = modern with auto-waiting.