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Selenium vs Playwright

Selenium lands on Depends, and Playwright lands on Worth it.

Selenium

selenium.dev

Depends
Confidence: Medium

Buy if you have engineers to write and maintain browser test suites at scale . it's the free industry standard.

Read the full report

Playwright

playwright.dev

Worth it
Confidence: Medium

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

Read the full report

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Selenium versus Playwright
CompareSeleniumPlaywright
VerdictDependsWorth it
Best forQA teams with coding skillsDev teams shipping web apps
Who it's not forTeams without engineers . tests are code and break constantlyTeams with zero developers
PrivacyMultiple public CVEs, mostly Selenium Grid; a critical flaw in an old Docker hub image and in-the-wild cryptomining abuse of exposed Grids.⁸No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.14
Support qualityCommunity and sponsorship only; no vendor supportNo support evidence in sources
Public sentimentUsers value its free flexibility but consistently flag coding demands, brittle tests, and heavy maintenance.³Third-party reviewers consistently describe Playwright as fast, reliable, and increasingly the default E2E framework, though direct user quotes are scarce.15
Biggest gotchaFree tool, expensive operation: you pay for Grid hosting, CI infrastructure, and engineers' time.⁵Framework is free, but scaled parallel runs route through Azure's pay-as-you-go Playwright Testing service.16

Pick Selenium when

  • QA teams with coding skills
  • Cross-browser regression suites
  • Distributed testing via Grid
  • Automating repetitive web admin tasks

When Selenium is not a fit

  • Teams without engineers . tests are code and break constantly
  • Small startups wanting quick automation; use Playwright or Cypress
  • Buyers needing vendor support or SLAs; there is no company to call
  • Anyone unwilling to self-host and secure a Grid

Pick Playwright when

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

When Playwright is not a fit

  • 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

Sources

  1. Selenium official siteselenium.dev
    official
  2. Is Selenium Free? How Much Does Selenium Cost?bugbug.io
    official
  3. Selenium Products | 233 G2 Reviewsg2.com
    review
  4. Is Selenium becoming obsolete? . r/QualityAssurancereddit.com
    review
  5. The Hidden Costs of Using Selenium for UI Test Automationtelerik.com
    news
  6. Playwright vs Selenium 2026: The $216K Maintenance Taxgetautonoma.com
    news
  7. Growing Misuse of Selenium Grid for Cryptomining (SeleniumGreed)darktrace.com
    security
  8. CVE-2022-28109 . Selenium Grid 4.0.0 (NVD)nvd.nist.gov
    security
  9. Known Vulnerabilities in selenium/hub:3.141.59 Docker imagesliplane.io
    security
  10. Selenium, Open Source Funding, and Community-Driven Developmentdev.to
    news
  11. Companies that use Selenium (84,379) . TheirStacktheirstack.com
    news
  12. Playwright official siteplaywright.dev
    official
  13. Playwright release notesplaywright.dev
    official
  14. Playwright security pageplaywright.dev
    security
  15. Playwright Review: Features, Pricing & Alternatives 2025testguild.com
    review
  16. Announcing Microsoft Playwright Testingazure.microsoft.com
    news