In 2026 browser automation = practically choosing one of these three. Playwright dominates the market (Microsoft, newest, multi-browser), Puppeteer (Google, Chrome-only) is gradually displaced, Selenium (open standard, oldest) holds in enterprise testing.
Architecture
Playwright — own protocol (CDP for Chromium, custom for Firefox/WebKit), single API across all browsers. Auto-wait, network interception, browser contexts.
Puppeteer — exclusively CDP, Chromium-based browsers only (Chrome, Edge). No auto-wait — you must wait manually.
Selenium — WebDriver protocol (W3C standard), driver per browser. Oldest architecture, most compatibility, but slower API.
Speed
2025 benchmarks (1000 page loads, login flow):
- Playwright: ~3.4 min
- Puppeteer: ~3.7 min
- Selenium: ~5.8 min (40% slower)
Main difference: Selenium does HTTP roundtrip per command (WebDriver protocol), Playwright/Puppeteer use persistent WebSocket (CDP).
Detection
Vanilla each is detected by Cloudflare / Akamai. All require stealth plugin / patches.
- Playwright + playwright-extra + stealth — most active patch ecosystem (2026)
- Puppeteer + puppeteer-extra + stealth — still well-maintained, original stealth plugin
- Selenium + undetected-chromedriver — works, but smaller community, less frequent updates