Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, Cypress: In-depth comparison and risk analysis of automated framework detection by websites

Introduction

Using automation tools often faces the risk of detection by websites. Websites frequently detect the use of automation tools, triggering various actions such as frequent human verification prompts, account bans, content restrictions, IP bans, and user marking. These issues can significantly increase the cost of automation work. Based on our years of experience in automation practices, this article provides a detailed comparison of commonly used automation frameworks in the market. Playwright, Selenium, Puppeteer, and Cypress are four major automation testing tools, each with its unique implementation principles and pros and cons. While there are already numerous evaluations and comparisons online, this article focuses primarily on the detection risks associated with these frameworks.

Playwright

One of the more popular cross-browser testing methods is Microsoft Playwright, created by the same team that brought you Puppeteer. Although Playwright and Puppeteer are similar in many ways, Playwright's advantage lies in its ability to handle Chrome, WebKit, and Firefox browsers.

• Implementation Principle: Playwright interacts directly with the browser via the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP), providing deep control over the browser environment. It supports multi-browser testing, including Chrome, Firefox, and WebKit.

• Detection Risk: Due to its in-depth control capabilities, Playwright excels at simulating real user behavior, reducing the risk of detection. Its direct interaction with the browser through CDP makes it generally harder to detect than WebDriver, as it can finely control browser behavior.

• Usability: Playwright offers a rich API, supports multiple languages, and is easy to write and maintain test scripts.

Official Documentation: Playwright Documentation

Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node.js library and browser testing framework developed by Google. The goal of this technology is to provide a high-level application programming interface for controlling headless Chrome using the DevTools protocol. Puppeteer focuses exclusively on Chrome, Chromium, and JavaScript. It is used for automation, web scraping, performance testing, and screenshot testing. Unlike Selenium, Puppeteer lacks a dedicated integrated development environment (IDE) designed for writing test scripts and managing test suites. Users can easily use the Puppeteer library in their preferred IDE to write JavaScript code. There are various ways to integrate Puppeteer with proxies.

• Implementation Principle: Puppeteer also interacts with Chrome or Chromium via CDP, providing fine control over the Chrome browser.

• Detection Risk: Puppeteer is relatively flexible in simulating user behavior but primarily targets Chrome, which may pose certain detection risks when simulating other browsers.

• Usability: Puppeteer primarily supports JavaScript, making it very friendly for developers familiar with Node.js.

Official Documentation: Puppeteer Documentation

Selenium

A set of open-source tools named Selenium can be used to test browser applications. Selenium was launched in 2004 and created by Thoughtworks. Browser application testing is its primary focus. Selenium Grid, Selenium IDE, Selenium RC, and Selenium WebDriver are its main components. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Edge, and Opera are just a few of the browsers that Selenium supports for application testing. Selenium scripts are compatible with JavaScript, Java, Ruby, C#, and Python.

• Implementation Principle: Selenium interacts with the browser via the WebDriver interface, a more general method that supports multiple browsers and programming languages.

• Detection Risk: Selenium's WebDriver interface is relatively easy for websites to detect, especially when there are no additional measures taken to hide automation traces, making it identifiable by many sites.

• Usability: Selenium has a large community and abundant resources, but due to its architecture, setup and configuration can be complex.

Official Documentation: Selenium Documentation

Cypress

Cypress provides a good experience and well-integrated environment for developers in end-to-end testing. Before running end-to-end integration tests, it is necessary to install Selenium, wrappers for Selenium, drivers, assertion libraries, and other libraries for reporting, stubbing, and mocking. For testers, establishing a framework to meet all these requirements can be daunting. Cypress is an all-in-one solution that addresses all these cumbersome configuration issues.

• Implementation Principle: Cypress runs test scripts inside the browser, providing a testing experience that closely resembles the actual browser environment.

• Detection Risk: Due to its unique running method, Cypress may be difficult to detect in certain situations, but its functionality primarily focuses on front-end testing, which may not be suitable for all types of automation tasks.

• Usability: Cypress is particularly suited for front-end developers, offering an intuitive experience for writing and debugging tests.

Official Documentation: Cypress Documentation

Cypress, Selenium, Playwright, Puppeteer: Key Differences

Comprehensive Analysis

• Playwright and Puppeteer may have a slight edge in avoiding detection, as they provide more detailed control over the browser and more options to avoid detection. 

• Cypress, due to its unique running method, may also be difficult to detect in certain cases. 

• Selenium, on the other hand, may be more easily detected by some websites due to its use of WebDriver.

When choosing the appropriate automation testing tool, it is essential to consider technical characteristics, usability, and detection risks. Playwright and Puppeteer perform well in simulating user behavior and reducing detection risks. Website detection includes not only automation detection but also user behavior, browser fingerprint characteristics (such as UA, Canvas, WebRTC, resolution, etc.), IP addresses, accounts, and other complex detection elements. MoreLogin - The fingerprint browser can simulate real fingerprint characteristics and, in addition to Windows and Mac, can also simulate mobile canvas fingerprints. The software can create multiple independent real browsers through an API, easily add IPs and accounts, and when combined with Playwright or Puppeteer, can significantly reduce detection risks. Additionally, MoreLogin’s API can greatly enhance efficiency and reduce costs associated with procuring virtual machines.

Finally, we hope this article has been helpful. If you need further information about MoreLogin’s automation capabilities, feel free to join our Telegram community to ask questions; our technical experts will provide answers one by one.