Why we’re graduating from Playwright

Stagehand initially built on Playwright as an AI-centric layer, adding capabilities like act, extract, and observe, which allowed developers to integrate it quickly into existing scripts for fast automation deployment. Despite its success and compatibility with Playwright's API, which facilitated minimal migration and rapid adoption, Stagehand faced limitations due to Playwright's test-first framework, such as latency and complexity from actionability checks and auto-waiting. As Stagehand's community expanded, the need to operate more directly at the protocol layer without unnecessary hurdles became clear, prompting a shift towards deeper integration with the Chrome DevTools Protocol for more efficient automation. Although Playwright provided a solid foundation and helped Stagehand reach a wide developer audience, the focus is now on refining the tool to ensure a smaller core, more predictable behavior, and performance that feels native, while maintaining the mission of providing developers and models with a trustworthy browser automation solution.

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