# Cypress vs Playwright: Which is best for E2E testing?

Cypress was our go-to end-to-end (E2E) testing tool, and we were pretty happy with it, up until recently that is. Lately, we've run into a couple of testing scenarios where Cypress support has been limited, notably around multiple domains/tabs and iFrames. This caused us to re-evaluate the available E2E tools and it ultimately came down to two options; keep Cypress or switch to Playwright.

In this article, I compare both tools in the format of an [ADR](https://adr.github.io/madr/#overview), which should help us decide which tool to go with. Let the battle commence!

## **Cypress**

[https://www.cypress.io/](https://www.cypress.io/)

* Good, because it's very easy to learn and get set up with basic tests.
    
* Good, because it has a nice dashboard to view test reports, analytics and recordings.
    
* Good, because it supports Chromium and Firefox.
    
* Good, because it has a very slick Test Runner UI.
    
* Good, because it's built specifically for end-to-end testing.
    
* Good, because you can edit your test code in the browser and instantly see it run as you change the code.
    
* Good, because it's mature and has good community support.
    
* Bad, because it doesn't support multiple domains.
    
* Bad, because authentication requires a lot more setup due to lack of multi-domain support.
    
* Bad, because it doesn't support Webkit (Safari)
    
* Bad, because you cannot run tests against multiple browsers at the same time.
    
* Bad, because iFrame support is limited.
    
* Bad, because there is no "hover" support.
    
* Bad, because the chaining command syntax can quickly get out of hand for more complex tests.
    
* Bad, because you have to pay a premium to get access to some dashboard features (e.g flake detection)
    
* Bad, because to do parallelization well, it requires vendor-locked software.
    

## **Playwright**

[https://playwright.dev/](https://playwright.dev/)

* Good, because it supports Chromium, Firefox and Webkit (Safari).
    
* Good, because it supports multiple domains and tabs.
    
* Good, because it supports 5 language bindings (Javascript, Typescript, Java, Python, .NET)
    
* Good, because it's [fast](https://blog.checklyhq.com/cypress-vs-selenium-vs-playwright-vs-puppeteer-speed-comparison/).
    
* Good, because you can run tests against multiple browsers at the same time.
    
* Good, because it fully supports parallelization, even locally.
    
* Good, because it supports parallel tests within a single test file.
    
* Good, because it's Javascript first, so feels more natural.
    
* Good, because it has "hover" support.
    
* Good, because iFrames are natively supported.
    
* Good, because it supports reuse of authentication state to speed up tests.
    
* Good, because it lets you choose your test runner (e.g. Jest but the default one is advised)
    
* Good, because signing in is simple, you just fill in the form.
    
* Good, because it's completely free.
    
* Good, because it has few dependencies.
    
* Bad, because it's still quite new, so possibility of a smaller community.
    
* Bad, because 3rd party tutorials are out of date due to changing API.
    
* Bad, because it's a mix between an automation and testing framework.
    
* Bad, because it has a steeper learning curve.
    
* Bad, because it does not have a dedicated dashboard so would be harder to debug tests remotely.
    

## **Common features between both**

* Good documentation
    
* API testing
    
* Point & click test recording
    
* Test debugging tools
    
* Test retries
    
* Automatic waiting
    
* Video and screen capture
    
* Mobile emulation
    
* Regularly updated and well maintained
    
* Run only a subset of tests
    
* Network monitoring
    

## Conclusion

In the end, we decided to go with Playwright, mainly because of its native support for multiple domains, tabs and iFrames. I will say that I found Cypress' debugging to be more developer-friendly and in general "slicker", but that wasn't enough to make us stay put.

## Want to see more?

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Bye for now 👋