Playwright vs Cypress
Both are free E2E test tools. Playwright drives all major browsers from outside, Cypress runs inside the browser. Here is when to use each.
Playwright vs Cypress: the short answer
For a new project, pick Playwright: broader browser coverage and easier debugging of flaky tests. Keep Cypress if your team already has a working suite, plugins or Cypress Cloud dashboards you depend on. A rewrite of a stable suite rarely pays for itself on its own.
What is Playwright?
Playwright is a free, open-source browser automation and end-to-end testing framework from Microsoft. One API drives Chromium, Firefox and WebKit, and its trace viewer records a replayable timeline of each run.
What is Cypress?
Cypress is an end-to-end testing framework that runs tests inside the browser next to your app, with direct access to the DOM, network requests and application state. It has a large plugin ecosystem and a live preview that reloads as you edit tests.
Playwright vs Cypress pricing
Playwright:
- Free and open source, with no paid tier for the core tool.
- You only pay for the infrastructure you run tests on, such as CI minutes.
Cypress:
- The app is free and open source under the MIT License.
- Cypress Cloud Free: 10 users, 500 test results per month.
- Team: from $67 per month, billed annually at $799.
- Business: from $267 per month, billed annually at $3,199.
- Enterprise: custom pricing.
Pricing checked November 2026. For a solo builder or small team, both are free to run. Cost only shows up if you want Cypress Cloud's hosted dashboard, while Playwright's trace viewer, parallelism and codegen ship in the free tool.
Key differences
- Architecture: Cypress runs inside the browser. Playwright runs outside and controls the browser through one API.
- Browser coverage: Playwright covers Chromium, Firefox and WebKit. Check Cypress's docs for the browsers it supports before relying on a specific one.
- Debugging: Cypress has time-travel snapshots and live reload. Playwright has a trace viewer with DOM snapshots, network calls and console logs.
- Parallelism: it's built into free Playwright. For Cypress, the hosted dashboard is a separate paid product.
- Ecosystem: Cypress has the older plugin ecosystem and many existing suites.
- Switching cost: moving a large Cypress suite to Playwright means rewriting every test, so the gain has to be concrete, such as missing WebKit coverage.
When to pick Playwright
- You're starting E2E tests from scratch.
- You need WebKit or Firefox coverage.
- You want to diagnose intermittent failures from a recorded trace.
When to pick Cypress
- You already have a working Cypress suite.
- Your team likes the in-browser model and visual debugging.
- You depend on specific Cypress plugins or Cypress Cloud analytics.
Other options
Neither replaces a unit test runner. Pair either one with Vitest or Jest for logic and component tests, and Testing Library for querying the UI like a user does.
Verdict
Playwright is the default for new end-to-end test setups, and it costs nothing to try. Stay on Cypress only when migration has no payoff for your team.