When deciding on the right testing tool for your web application, Playwright Vs Applitools always a good idea to review alternative solutions that could meet your project needs. Applitools alternatives have introduced various tools that can make the testing process much more efficient. However, with Playwright, how are they any different? Playwright Vs Applitools have different uses but both have features that can be helpful to developers. This article will outline a comparison of Playwright and Applitools, which will be helpful when making an informed choice.
- Know Playwright: Playwright is a testing automation framework for web applications that is free and open source. It supports three of the most common browsers: Chrome, Firefox, and WebKit. The product provides cross-platform compatibility. Mainly, Playwright aims to conduct end-to-end functional testing. It allows developers to test various forms of browser actions, such as submitting forms, button clicks, and page navigation.
- Know Applitools: This tool is a visual testing tool as compared to Applitools. Yet, it has applied visual integrity specific to web application purposes. Visual testing mainly checks for the UI test by capturing screenshots and comparing baseline images with those under test. Its capabilities for visual testing make Applitools the leader among the technologies concerning this matter of ensuring continuity and aesthetic appeal within the user experience.
- Functional vs Visual Testing: The main difference between Playwright and Applitools is the focus on testing. Playwright is mostly used for functional testing, which means it checks if the application functions as expected for the user to interact with. Playwright simulates actual user behaviors, like clicking, typing, and scrolling, to make sure the web application behaves accordingly. On the other hand, Applitools focuses on visual testing. It doesn’t test the functionality of the application, rather is to ensure the UI is as expected. This includes visual bugs like broken layouts, incorrect fonts, or misaligned images.
- Setup and Ease of Use: Playwright Vs Applitools are user-friendly setups, but their complexity levels differ. Playwright is easier to set up compared to other options, especially for developers familiar with JavaScript or TypeScript. Its API is very simple, and it has extensive documentation, which helps developers get started with test automation. Because Applitools focuses on visual testing, it requires a slightly more complex setup. Developers need to add the Applitools Eyes SDK to their project to capture screenshots at runtime. Such a setup may be more complicated compared to the Playwright version, especially for users who are still learning about visual testing.
- Performance and Speed: Playwright is fast and performing. It has parallel test execution, which simply means that different tests can be run in parallel, and hence the total time taken for execution of tests would be much lower. Applitools is efficient in visual testing but can be slower than Playwright. The process of visual comparison is the capture and analysis of screenshots, which is longer than functional testing.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, both playwrights and Applitools serve different purposes. Ideal for functional testing where your application would be under the right interactions of the users. Applitools is the perfect tool for visual testing that ensures the UI looks correct on different platforms. If you want to find the best Applitools Alternatives, look for those tools that will give you visual testing capabilities as well. For Playwright alternatives, search for tools that can provide you with end-to-end functional testing with the support of more browsers. Ultimately, it will depend on whether you need to test functionally or visually.
