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Selenium vs Playwright: catalog facts
Selenium	Playwright
Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence.	Free Free and open source.
Windows, Self-hosted, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
Widely used standard for browser automation Grid distributes tests across many machines and browsers	One API across Chromium, Firefox and WebKit Auto-waiting and retrying assertions reduce flaky tests
Requires writing test code Running a Grid takes setup and maintenance	Requires writing test code Downloads its own browser builds, which take disk space
Downloadable app, Self-hosted	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: Apache-2.0
No account needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.