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Should I Use Playwright?

playwright.dev·Analyzed 1 week ago··Based on 10 sources

Web automation and testing for apps, scripts, and AI agents

Verdict

Worth it

Buy if your team writes code: Playwright is free, open source, and repeatedly cited as the default modern E2E testing framework.

Confidence: Medium

Skip it if you have no developers or want no-code, record-and-playback testing.

Free, Microsoft-backed E2E testing framework that's the 2026 default — if your team codes. No-code buyers: look elsewhere.

Key stats

  • Value for money: 5/5

    Rating

  • $0

    Starting price

  • 10

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 5/5. Free and open source; no license fees
  • Ease of use: 4/5. Fast to start, per third-party guides
  • Feature depth: 4/5. Parallel runs by default; broad ecosystem guides
  • Support quality. No support evidence in sources
  • Security posture: 3/5. No security page found; no known vulns
  • $0 Price Free and open source
  • Azure-hosted Managed tier Microsoft Playwright Testing, pay-as-you-go since Oct 2023
  • Top 5 Analyst coverage Ranked in 2026 E2E framework comparisons
  • None found Security page playwright.dev/security

Pricing

Open source (self-hosted)

$0

  • Full framework, parallel tests by default
  • Community support only

Microsoft Playwright Testing (Azure)

Pay-as-you-go, concurrency-based

  • Managed cloud scaling
  • Flexible billing
Best for and not for

Best for

  • Dev teams shipping web apps
  • QA engineers automating browsers
  • CI/CD pipelines
  • Teams testing apps and AI agents

Not for

  • Teams with zero developers
  • No-code buyers wanting record-and-playback only
  • Manual testers who won't maintain code
  • Buyers needing vendor-SLA support on the free tier

Biggest gotcha

  • mediumFramework is free, but scaled parallel runs route through Azure's pay-as-you-go Playwright Testing service.⁵
  • mediumNo vendor security page; verify repo policies before enterprise rollout.³
  • mediumOpen-source community support only; SLAs require the paid Azure tier.⁴
  • lowUI changes break test locators; research documents locator breakage as recurring maintenance work.

Pros

  • Free and open source with no licensing costs⁴
  • Tests run in parallel by default, shortening suites¹
  • Microsoft-backed, with a managed Azure scaling service⁵
  • Fast to start, with abundant setup and CI/CD guides⁸
  • Reviewers call it the default modern E2E choice⁶

Cons

  • Code-based: every test must be written in code⁹
  • No security page published on its own site³
  • Learning curve pushes users toward ~$87 paid courses10
  • Cloud-scale parallel runs mean paying for Azure's managed tier⁵

Security

No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

What users say

Third-party reviewers consistently describe Playwright as fast, reliable, and increasingly the default E2E framework, though direct user quotes are scarce.

“should i do this course ?, it will cost me around 87.4 dollars ...”
Reddit, r/softwaretesting

Alternatives

Compare Playwright with each alternative.

  • Microsoft Playwright Testing

    Official hosted Playwright if you'd rather skip infrastructure

Methodology

Based on 20+ public sources; snippets were truncated, so some framing is inferred from corroboration.

Sources

  1. Playwright official siteplaywright.dev
    official
  2. Playwright release notesplaywright.dev
    official
  3. Playwright security pageplaywright.dev
    security
  4. Playwright Review: Features, Pricing & Alternatives 2025testguild.com
    review
  5. Announcing Microsoft Playwright Testingazure.microsoft.com
    news
  6. Playwright Review, Pricing & Features (2026)softwares.com
    review
  7. Compare the top 5 E2E testing frameworks in 2026maestro.dev
    review
  8. Playwright Testing: Build and Scale E2E Testsbrowserless.io
    review
  9. Playwright E2E Testing: Setup to CI/CD Guidegetautonoma.com
    review
  10. Reddit: course cost question, r/softwaretestingreddit.com
    review

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