Playwright vs. Selenium — With a Note on “Undetectable” Drivers

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A pragmatic comparison focused on automation stability, async support, and detectability considerations.

Executive Summary

Playwright is a modern, async-first automation framework designed for reliability, testing, and compliant crawling of allowed targets. It does not offer an “undetectable mode.”

Selenium is the long-standing WebDriver standard. While Selenium itself is detectable like any automation tool, community projects (e.g., “undetectable chromedriver”, “selenium-stealth”) attempt to mask automation fingerprints. These are unofficial, often brittle across browser updates, and may conflict with site ToS or local laws.

Compliance note: Techniques that deliberately evade bot/automation detection can violate a website’s Terms of Service and applicable regulations. Use official APIs or obtain permission whenever possible.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Aspect Playwright Selenium (classic & “undetectable” variants)
API model Modern, async-first (Python/Node/.NET/Java). Excellent for high-concurrency tasks. Traditional, synchronous API; broad language support. Parallelism via threads/processes.
Browser support Chromium, Firefox, WebKit (officially bundled builds). All major browsers via W3C WebDriver (Chrome/Edge/Firefox/Safari).
Setup & tooling Simple: install + managed browsers; rich auto-waits, tracing, network hooks. Drivers per browser (ChromeDriver, GeckoDriver). Selenium Manager simplifies this in v4+.
Detectability No “undetectable mode.” Headless automation can be identified server-side (APIs, timing, headers). Non-headless + realistic profiles can reduce obvious signals, but no guarantees. Community “stealth/undetectable” projects attempt to mask fingerprints in headless mode. Not official, can break with updates, and present ToS/compliance risks.
Async integration First-class async in Python and Node; easy to integrate with FastAPI/asyncio. Sync only. Use thread/process pools to avoid blocking event loops in async services.
Primary strengths Reliability for E2E tests; modern API; great for compliant scraping/monitoring where permitted. Huge ecosystem; widest browser coverage; legacy compatibility; many community plugins.
Common pitfalls Not aimed at evading detection; headless differences can expose automation. “Undetectable” hacks are fragile, update-sensitive, and can cross legal/ethical lines.

Practical Guidance

  • If you need async, reliability, and CI-friendly E2E: choose Playwright.
  • If you require a specific legacy browser/driver stack: Selenium’s breadth may be decisive.
  • If your goal is to bypass detection: reconsider. Prefer official APIs, robots.txt-aware crawlers, and/or obtain consent. “Undetectable” tooling is unofficial and risky.
  • Performance & scale: Playwright’s async model simplifies high-concurrency designs; Selenium needs thread/process orchestration.

Conclusion

Playwright and Selenium serve overlapping but distinct priorities. Playwright prioritizes modern async ergonomics and testing reliability; Selenium offers unmatched ecosystem breadth. While Selenium’s community “undetectable” variants exist, they are not official, can be fragile, and raise compliance concerns. For long-term, maintainable automation—especially in a professional setting—favor tools and practices that respect platform rules and emphasize stability over evasion.

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