File: library.md | Updated: 11/18/2025
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Introduction
Playwright Library provides unified APIs for launching and interacting with browsers, while Playwright Test provides all this plus a fully managed end-to-end Test Runner and experience.
Under most circumstances, for end-to-end testing, you'll want to use @playwright/test (Playwright Test), and not playwright (Playwright Library) directly. To get started with Playwright Test, follow the Getting Started Guide
.
Differences when using library
The following is an example of using the Playwright Library directly to launch Chromium, go to a page, and check its title:
TypeScript
JavaScript
import { chromium, devices } from 'playwright';import assert from 'node:assert';(async () => { // Setup const browser = await chromium.launch(); const context = await browser.newContext(devices['iPhone 11']); const page = await context.newPage(); // The actual interesting bit await context.route('**.jpg', route => route.abort()); await page.goto('https://example.com/'); assert(await page.title() === 'Example Domain'); // 👎 not a Web First assertion // Teardown await context.close(); await browser.close();})();
const assert = require('node:assert');const { chromium, devices } = require('playwright');(async () => { // Setup const browser = await chromium.launch(); const context = await browser.newContext(devices['iPhone 11']); const page = await context.newPage(); // The actual interesting bit await context.route('**.jpg', route => route.abort()); await page.goto('https://example.com/'); assert(await page.title() === 'Example Domain'); // 👎 not a Web First assertion // Teardown await context.close(); await browser.close();})();
Run it with node my-script.js.
A test to achieve similar behavior, would look like:
TypeScript
JavaScript
import { expect, test, devices } from '@playwright/test';test.use(devices['iPhone 11']);test('should be titled', async ({ page, context }) => { await context.route('**.jpg', route => route.abort()); await page.goto('https://example.com/'); await expect(page).toHaveTitle('Example');});
const { expect, test, devices } = require('@playwright/test');test.use(devices['iPhone 11']);test('should be titled', async ({ page, context }) => { await context.route('**.jpg', route => route.abort()); await page.goto('https://example.com/'); await expect(page).toHaveTitle('Example');});
Run it with npx playwright test.
The key differences to note are as follows:
| | Library | Test |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Installation | npm install playwright | npm init playwright@latest - note install vs. init |
| Install browsers | Install @playwright/browser-chromium, @playwright/browser-firefox and/or @playwright/browser-webkit | npx playwright install or npx playwright install chromium for a single one |
| import from | playwright | @playwright/test |
| Initialization | Explicitly need to:<br><br>1. Pick a browser to use, e.g. chromium<br>2. Launch browser with browserType.launch()<br> <br>3. Create a context with browser.newContext()<br> , and pass any context options explicitly, e.g. devices['iPhone 11']<br>4. Create a page with browserContext.newPage() | An isolated page and context are provided to each test out-of the box, along with other built-in fixtures<br>. No explicit creation. If referenced by the test in its arguments, the Test Runner will create them for the test. (i.e. lazy-initialization) |
| Assertions | No built-in Web-First Assertions | Web-First assertions<br> like:<br><br>* expect(page).toHaveTitle()<br> <br>* expect(page).toHaveScreenshot()<br> <br><br>which auto-wait and retry for the condition to be met. |
| Timeouts | Defaults to 30s for most operations. | Most operations don't time out, but every test has a timeout that makes it fail (30s by default). |
| Cleanup | Explicitly need to:<br><br>1. Close context with browserContext.close()<br> <br>2. Close browser with browser.close() | No explicit close of built-in fixtures<br>; the Test Runner will take care of it. |
| Running | When using the Library, you run the code as a node script, possibly with some compilation first. | When using the Test Runner, you use the npx playwright test command. Along with your config<br>, the Test Runner handles any compilation and choosing what to run and how to run it. |
In addition to the above, Playwright Test, as a full-featured Test Runner, includes:
Configuration Matrix and Projects : In the above example, in the Playwright Library version, if we wanted to run with a different device or browser, we'd have to modify the script and plumb the information through. With Playwright Test, we can just specify the matrix of configurations in one place, and it will create run the one test under each of these configurations.
and more…
Usage
Use npm or Yarn to install Playwright library in your Node.js project. See system requirements .
npm i -D playwright
You will also need to install browsers - either manually or by adding a package that will do it for you automatically.
# Download the Chromium, Firefox and WebKit browsernpx playwright install chromium firefox webkit# Alternatively, add packages that will download a browser upon npm installnpm i -D @playwright/browser-chromium @playwright/browser-firefox @playwright/browser-webkit
See managing browsers for more options.
Once installed, you can import Playwright in a Node.js script, and launch any of the 3 browsers (chromium, firefox and webkit).
const { chromium } = require('playwright');(async () => { const browser = await chromium.launch(); // Create pages, interact with UI elements, assert values await browser.close();})();
Playwright APIs are asynchronous and return Promise objects. Our code examples use the async/await pattern to ease readability. The code is wrapped in an unnamed async arrow function which is invoking itself.
(async () => { // Start of async arrow function // Function code // ...})(); // End of the function and () to invoke itself
First script
In our first script, we will navigate to https://playwright.dev/ and take a screenshot in WebKit.
const { webkit } = require('playwright');(async () => { const browser = await webkit.launch(); const page = await browser.newPage(); await page.goto('https://playwright.dev/'); await page.screenshot({ path: `example.png` }); await browser.close();})();
By default, Playwright runs the browsers in headless mode. To see the browser UI, pass the headless: false flag while launching the browser. You can also use slowMo to slow down execution. Learn more in the debugging tools section
.
firefox.launch({ headless: false, slowMo: 50 });
Record scripts
Command line tools can be used to record user interactions and generate JavaScript code.
npx playwright codegen wikipedia.org
Browser downloads
To download Playwright browsers run:
# Explicitly download browsersnpx playwright install
Alternatively, you can add @playwright/browser-chromium, @playwright/browser-firefox and @playwright/browser-webkit packages to automatically download the respective browser during the package installation.
# Use a helper package that downloads a browser on npm installnpm install @playwright/browser-chromium
Download behind a firewall or a proxy
Pass HTTPS_PROXY environment variable to download through a proxy.
Bash
PowerShell
Batch
Download from artifact repository
By default, Playwright downloads browsers from Microsoft's CDN. Pass PLAYWRIGHT_DOWNLOAD_HOST environment variable to download from an internal artifacts repository instead.
Bash
PowerShell
Batch
Skip browser download
In certain cases, it is desired to avoid browser downloads altogether because browser binaries are managed separately. This can be done by setting PLAYWRIGHT_SKIP_BROWSER_DOWNLOAD variable before installing packages.
Bash
PowerShell
Batch
TypeScript support
Playwright includes built-in support for TypeScript. Type definitions will be imported automatically. It is recommended to use type-checking to improve the IDE experience.
Add the following to the top of your JavaScript file to get type-checking in VS Code or WebStorm.
// @ts-check// ...
Alternatively, you can use JSDoc to set types for variables.
/** @type {import('playwright').Page} */let page;
TypeScript support will work out-of-the-box. Types can also be imported explicitly.
let page: import('playwright').Page;