Why Playwright Feels Faster Than Selenium (And Why Speed Isn’t the Real Story)

If you search “Why is Playwright faster than Selenium?” you’ll find dozens of answers.

Most of them are wrong.

Playwright is not faster at clicking buttons.
A click is a click — browsers don’t magically move faster.

So why do Playwright test suites finish in minutes while Selenium suites take hours?

Because Playwright doesn’t waste time waiting.

And the reason for that lives deep inside its architecture.

The Biggest Myth About Automation Speed

What most people believe

Playwright clicks elements faster than Selenium.

What actually happens

Clicking takes roughly the same amount of time in both tools.

The difference is everything that happens before the click.

That’s where Selenium and Playwright fundamentally diverge.

What Really Happens When Selenium Clicks a Button?

You write something simple:

driver.findElement(button).click();

But internally, Selenium executes a long chain of communication:

Test Code
 → Selenium Client
 → HTTP Request
 → WebDriver Server
 → Browser Driver
 → Browser

Then comes the waiting loop:

• Selenium asks: “Is the element ready?”
• Browser replies: “Not yet.”
• Selenium asks again.
• Browser replies: “Almost.”
• Selenium asks again.
• Browser finally says: “Now.”

This is polling-based automation.

Selenium must constantly ask the browser if it’s safe to proceed.
That’s why you end up writing:

• Explicit waits
• Implicit waits
• Custom retry logic

Not because you’re bad at testing — but because the architecture demands it.

How Playwright Handles the Same Action

Now look at Playwright:

await page.click(button);

Under the hood:

Test Code
 → Playwright
 → WebSocket
 → Browser

Here’s the critical difference:

👉 The browser tells Playwright when it’s ready.

Playwright listens to browser events in real time.
No polling.
No repeated “Are we ready yet?” checks.

The Real Technical Reason: Communication Model

A simple analogy

• Selenium is like sending texts and waiting for replies
• Playwright is like being on a live phone call

That’s why Playwright feels faster — it reacts instantly when the browser state changes.

Speed Isn’t the Biggest Win (This Is)

The real performance advantage comes from something many testers overlook:

🔥 BrowserContext

Selenium’s model

• 10 test scenarios
• 10 browser instances
• Each browser startup: ~2–3 seconds

Total overhead:

20–30 seconds before tests even start

Playwright’s model

• 1 browser
• 10 isolated BrowserContexts
• Context creation: ~50 milliseconds

Total overhead:

~500 milliseconds

That’s 20× faster, and clicking speed has nothing to do with it.

Real Results From Real Teams

Typical Selenium Suite

• 500 tests
• ~2 hours execution time
• 40–50 flaky failures
• Manual waits everywhere

Same Suite in Playwright

• 500 tests
• ~25 minutes
• 5–8 flaky failures
• Auto-wait handles most timing issues
• ~5× faster overall

This is why companies migrate — not for syntax, but for stability, cost, and speed.

Why Companies Prefer Playwright

Organizations switch to Playwright because it delivers:

• ✅ Fewer flaky tests
• ✅ Faster CI/CD pipelines
• ✅ Lower infrastructure costs
• ✅ Cleaner and shorter test code
• ✅ Better support for modern SPAs

This isn’t marketing — it’s architecture doing the heavy lifting.

The Most Common Mistake Testers Make

Most people “learn Playwright” by:

• Replacing driver.click() with page.click()
• Keeping the same waits
• Keeping the same test structure
• Keeping the same mindset

That’s not learning Playwright.

That’s writing Selenium code using Playwright syntax.

How to Actually Learn Playwright

To truly understand Playwright, you must learn:

• How BrowserContext enables parallelism
• Why auto-wait is possible
• When to use page vs context
• How event-driven automation changes test design
• How to structure tests for speed and reliability

This is the difference between:

“I know Playwright commands”
and
“I understand Playwright’s architecture”

Is Selenium Obsolete?

Answer is No.

Selenium still:

• Powers large legacy systems
• Has unmatched ecosystem reach
• Works well for many teams

But if you’re starting fresh in 2025, ask yourself:

👉 Why learn a tool built on an older architectural model?

Why Playwright Is the Better Choice Today?

Playwright is:

• Easier to write and maintain
• Built for modern web applications
• Designed for true parallel execution
• Increasingly what companies hire for

Most Playwright tutorials teach:

• Installation
• Clicking
• Assertions

Very few teach why Playwright works the way it does.

Final Thought

Selenium controls the browser from the outside.
Playwright works with the browser from the inside.

That single idea explains almost everything.

What’s your experience been with Playwright so far?