#Comparison

Honest comparison against the four browser-automation tools you're most likely choosing between. Snapshot: 2026-05-25.

#At a glance

#Pick ferridriver when

• Your team writes Rust. Tests live in the same toolchain as the product code. No Node sidecar.
• You want one binary. MCP server, BDD runner, browser installer, script runner — ferridriver.
• You want native JS / TS BDD steps without Node in the run path. Rolldown bundles, QuickJS executes. package.json and node_modules optional.
• You want an AI-driven browser without spinning up another stack. The MCP server ships in the binary.

#Pick Playwright when

• You're already on Node and the team is comfortable with the JS ecosystem.
• You need API stability today. ferridriver is pre-1.0.
• You need a richer language SDK matrix (Python, .NET, Java first-class).
• Codegen, UI mode, and the full Trace Viewer integration matter. ferridriver produces Playwright-compatible traces but does not ship the UI itself.

#Pick Puppeteer when

• You only need Chromium and want the smallest possible dependency surface in a Node project.
• You don't need a test framework wrapper — you'll BYO Jest / Vitest / Mocha.

#Pick Selenium when

• You need real Safari (safaridriver), real Edge legacy, or obscure browser-vendor drivers.
• You operate a grid for distributed cross-browser, cross-OS runs.
• You're standardizing on W3C WebDriver for vendor neutrality.

#Pick Cypress when

• Time-travel debugging in the UI runner is your team's main workflow.
• You're testing only Chromium-family browsers and the in-browser execution model fits (no multi-tab, no cross-origin, single browser per spec).

#What ferridriver doesn't do (yet)

• Position stability check before clicks — Playwright re-hits coords to ensure nothing is mid-animation. On the roadmap.
• Receives-events check before clicks — Playwright re-hits coords to ensure nothing covers the target. On the roadmap.
• UI mode — no time-travel debugger. Use the Playwright trace viewer on the trace ZIP we emit.
• Codegen — ferridriver codegen records interactions and emits a runnable script (default TypeScript), but has no interactive picker / inspector UI like Playwright's codegen window.
• HAR on BiDi backend — returns Unsupported. Use a CDP backend.
• Download events on BiDi backend — returns Unsupported. Use a CDP backend.

#Performance

Rough order-of-magnitude only. Real numbers vary by hardware, network, and what each suite actually does.

The pipe transport, Rust polling, and overlapped worker launches add up. A 200-test suite at 4 workers typically runs 2–3× faster than the same suite on @playwright/test. The gap shrinks as tests do more real work (server round-trips, DOM-heavy assertions) — those costs are the same everywhere.