Puppeteer vs. Playwright: Comparison Guide

Web scraping is a vital technique for accessing vast online data, with tools like Puppeteer and Playwright enhancing its effectiveness through browser automation capabilities. Puppeteer, a Node.js library, offers extensive control over Chrome or Chromium-based browsers, while Playwright extends this control across multiple browsers, including Firefox and WebKit. The text compares these tools, discussing their language support, browser compatibility, usability for web scraping, speed, selector engines, integration capabilities, and community support. Puppeteer is favored for developers within the JavaScript ecosystem and offers robust integration with testing tools like Jest, whereas Playwright, with broader language support and advanced features like cross-browser testing and built-in proxy support, is lauded for its speed and versatility. While Puppeteer benefits from a mature community and Google's backing, Playwright, supported by Microsoft, is rapidly growing in popularity and offers strong cross-browser capabilities. Both tools ensure a stable future with continuous updates, making them reliable options for web scraping tasks.