The world of software testing is rapidly evolving, and Playwright has emerged as a favorite framework for developers to automate their web UI tests. But as organizations scale and applications become more complex and change faster, scripted test automation can present significant challenges with test maintenance and complex testing scenarios like email and PDF testing, database connectivity, and MFA.
At our most recent mabl Experience, I gave a presentation about how mabl's modern approach to quality, combined with the power of Playwright, can enhance your testing efforts, improve collaboration, and help your team achieve comprehensive test coverage at scale. We'll explore that and more in this blog, including my full presentation below.
Why Developers Love Playwright
It’s clear from the plot above; Playwright's popularity has skyrocketed recently, surpassing both Selenium and Cypress in terms of developer adoption. This is no accident, and can be explained by a few factors:
- Modernized Approach: Playwright provides a significant upgrade over Selenium, with faster execution, cross-browser support, auto-waiting, and a more intuitive API.
- Strong Community Support: Backed by Microsoft, Playwright enjoys active development, a vibrant open-source community, and enterprise-grade reliability.
- Developer-Driven Testing: As organizations seek greater efficiency, many have shifted testing responsibilities towards developers. Playwright's code-first approach aligns perfectly with developer workflows, enabling them to take ownership of quality.
A Powerful Tool, But Not a Silver Bullet
While Playwright offers numerous advantages, relying solely on scripted test automation can create bottlenecks as your application grows and changes. In the chart below, you’ll notice that while test coverage might increase linearly, the effort required to maintain those tests grows exponentially. This can quickly lead to a situation where the majority of your team's time is spent fixing broken tests instead of creating new ones to keep pace with development. Building comprehensive test coverage with Playwright alone can take months, if not years, to achieve.
These challenges can be attributed to a few key limitations of a Playwright-only approach:
- High Skill Requirements: Creating and maintaining Playwright test scripts often requires specialized skills, leading to increased costs for hiring and retaining developers or SDETs who are familiar with it.
- Time-Consuming Test Creation: Building comprehensive test suites with scripted automation demands significant time investment, potentially impacting development velocity and time-to-market.
- Exponential Maintenance: As applications evolve and test suites grow, maintaining scripted tests becomes increasingly challenging. Fragile tests break easily, requiring constant updates and hindering scalability.
So, what if you've already invested heavily in Playwright? How can you address these challenges and scale your test automation efforts effectively?
Unlocking Playwright's Potential and Empowering Teams with mabl
Enter mabl for Playwright, a powerful integration that empowers teams to leverage their existing Playwright skills and test suites while gaining the advantages of mabl's intelligent test automation platform. This integration offers the best of both worlds: your developers can continue building powerful tests with Playwright and leverage mabl’s advanced capabilities to simplify complex scenarios, while other team members can also use mabl’s low-code interface to further contribute to quality.
Leverage Your Existing Playwright Investment
mabl seamlessly integrates with existing Playwright tests, allowing teams to continue using their current setup while gaining access to mabl's advanced capabilities. There's no need to rewrite tests or abandon familiar workflows.
Empower Developers and Expand Test Coverage
With mabl for Playwright, your developers can easily extend their Playwright tests to cover more complex scenarios. Effortlessly incorporate email testing, PDF validation, AI-powered assertions, and more.
Unify Your Testing Landscape with mabl
By integrating Playwright with mabl, teams gain a unified view of quality. Test results from both platforms are centralized in mabl's dashboard, providing a holistic understanding of quality across all testing efforts.
Enhancing Playwright Tests with mabl
Extend the functionality of your Playwright tests by integrating mabl's advanced testing features. To get started, you'll want to install the @mablhq/playwright-tools package, which enables you to seamlessly incorporate the following mabl capabilities into your Playwright test suites:
- Email Testing: Create and manage temporary or permanent email addresses for validating email workflows.
- GenAI Assertions: Define complex assertions effortlessly to validate images, text, and chatbot interactions.
- Login Scenarios and MFA: Securely store and manage test credentials, including those requiring two-factor authentication, directly within mabl.
- Database Queries: Interact with and validate test environment databases without the need for database drivers or complex network configurations.
- PDF Testing: Open and validate PDF documents as testable HTML.
For example, here's how easy it is to add an AI-powered assertion to your Playwright test:
// Create a prompt to supply to the Gen AI tool
const prompt = `Please validate that the web page you are looking at is a marketing page for a company named mabl which does automated UI testing. Also validate that there are no broken images on the page`;
// Supply the Playwright Page to the evaluate function so mabl can extract a screenshot and other information to use with the prompt
const result = await mabl.evaluateGenAiAssertion(page, prompt);
// The result returned includes both a success (true/false) attribute as well as an explanation for the evaluation
console.log(`GEN AI EXPLANATION: [${result.explanation}]`);
expect(result.success).toBe(true);
This is just a glimpse of what you can achieve with mabl for Playwright. If you want to learn more about the integration, installation instructions, and detailed usage examples, the official mabl for Playwright documentation is a great place to start.
Unified Reporting: Gain Complete Visibility and Confidence
With mabl for Playwright, you get a centralized view of all your testing efforts by configuring your Playwright tests to report results directly to mabl. This integration provides a comprehensive overview of your quality landscape, bringing together insights from both your Playwright and mabl tests.
With the @mablhq/playwright-reporter package, you can easily send test execution data to your mabl workspace. This allows you to:
- Analyze test results alongside mabl test runs.
- Gain a holistic understanding of quality across all testing platforms.
- Share insights and collaborate more effectively.
Here's how simple it is to configure your Playwright tests to report to mabl:
import { defineConfig } from '@playwright/test';
export default defineConfig({
reporter: [
[
'@mablhq/playwright-reporter',
{
apiKey: process.env.MABL_API_KEY,
workspaceId: process.env.MABL_WORKSPACE_ID,
planName: 'SAMPLE_PLAN_NAME'
},
],
],
});
When your Playwright tests run, the output is published back to mabl upon completion of the test. These results are available under the Results tab alongside all other mabl test results
For a more in-depth look at how mabl for Playwright works, check out my full talk from mabl Experience:
Get Started with mabl for Playwright Today
mabl for Playwright empowers you to supercharge your Playwright tests with AI-powered features, simplify complex testing scenarios, and gain a unified view of quality across all your testing efforts. It's the perfect solution for teams looking to accelerate test creation, improve test stability, and enhance collaboration.
Ready to take your Playwright testing to the next level? Try mabl for Playwright today by signing up for a free trial.
