WebDriverIO vs Cypress vs Selenium, Playwright - Comparison - Nov 2022

WebdriverIO vs Cypress vs Selenium vs Playwright:

When we face the stuff to make decisions which automation test tools for your project, we should consider several factors and the properties of each automation tool to have the proper decisions. 

In this post, I would like to summarize the main information of the most well-know automation test tools. Hopefully, these information in this post are more helpful for you to choose correct tools for your projects.

This compare information is collected at Nov 2022. In the future, probably the provides of these tools will have new updates to improve them better. 

WebDriverIO: https://webdriver.io/

Cypress: https://www.cypress.io/

Selenium: https://www.selenium.dev/

Playwright: https://playwright.dev/

Application Supports:

- WebDriverIO: Support Web app automation test. (Integrate with Appium to cover Mobile app (Android and iOS) automation test).

- Cypress: Support Web application and API.

- Selenium: Support Web application only. (+ Java Appium to support Mobile app automation test. + Java Rest Assure to support API automation test)

- Playwright: Support Web application, mobile web application on Android device.

Compatible and Architecture 

- WebDriverIO supports: WebDriver Protocol (For almost browser testing) and Chrome DevTools Protocol (Easy to simulate and enable to configure Performance Audit in Developer mode.)

- Cypress: Don't use WebDriver protocols, Cypress run insides of testing browsers.

designed for in-depth browser analysis (e.g. tracing or intercepting network events) 

- Selenium: Using WebDriver Prototol only JSON Wire Protocol over HTTP connection, Browser Driver

- Playwright: Different with Selenium, the test script connects over Socket connection

Programming language Supports:

- WebDriverIO: Javascript, TypeScript

- Cypress: Javascript, TypeScript

- Selenium: Java, Python, .NET, JavaScript, Ruby, ...

- Playwright: Java, Python, .NET, JavaScript, Ruby, ...

This factor can be the most points to help you select correct approach to build your test framework effectively. If your QA team own and take the main responsibility on the test framework for your test, You should which tools and the programing language which your team is familiar with.

We can also combine this factor with the last factor (Community Supports). If you need to have any supports from public community. Which tools has bigger community supports, it can be more safety for you.

Build tools and Test Framework:

- WebDriverIO: Mocha Test framework. And Jasmine

- Cypress: npm + Mocha JS

- Selenium: 

    + Java + Maven + TestNG/ JUnit

    + PyTest (Python)

   Based on programing languages

- Playwright: like Selenium, based on Programming Languages

Integrate with Cucumber: 

(Write your test cases in Gherkin language and BDD methodology).

Both Selenium and Cypress support to integrate with Cucumber.

Performance and Execution Time

- Cypress: Test Runner is run inside of browser. Test Execution run faster. However, Cypress is only suitable for small or medium products. With the huge test cases executions, Cypress will reach a limitations about performance.

- Selenium: Consume resource to execute test scripts, control browsers by outside Test Script. Test Execution is slower than Cypress if we consider by 1 test scenario.

If we have the good test design framework, Selenium won't get the performance problems about high number of test cases execution.,

Reporting

- WebDriverIO: supports several reports (HTML, Slack integration)

- Cypress: Mocha report, Cypress Dashboard. Already integrate with Jira Plugin. Support Dom recording

- Selenium: integrate with thirdparty report: Alure reports, Cucumber reports, ... Test Framework control Reports and Notification.

- Playwright: json, html Test Retry with Playwright. Integrate with thirdparty report: Alure, ReportPortal, ..

Fee + License:

- Cypress: Most features are free. Fee and License for Test management + Test Analysis (Flaky management)

- Selenium: Totally free.

- WebDriverIO: Free

- Playwrights: Free

Community Supports:

- Actually, Selenium has the bigger community supports than Cypress.

- Selenium was initially developed by Jason Huggins in 2004.