Playwright vs Selenium Speed Comparison

Selenium WebDriver is slightly faster than Playwright.

A repost of my daughter’s article with permission. I added a few notes.

In the previous article, I compared the syntax of Playwright and Selenium WebDriver. One feedback I have heard is that “Selenium is slower”, I disagree. Both are fast in terms of test execution, from my experience.

Today, I did a quick benchmark to verify the timing difference.

Table of Contents:
· Test Setup
· Test Script
· Benchmark Results (raw)
· Refactored Versions
∘ Benchmark Results (POM)
· Findings
∘ Why I did not include Cypress?
· Zhimin’s notes
∘ The language factor is minor, in terms of test execution speed

Test Setup

1. Test Machine: iMac (2015 model, macOS 12.6.2)
   I chose a relatively slow machine purposefully.
2. Target website: https://travel.agileway.net
   This a simple test site created by my father for training purposes.
3. Execution method
   I developed both versions in TestWise IDE. To remove…