Both ship reliable browser automation, but they optimize for different teams. Here's a compared side-by-side so you can pick without wasting a sprint on a POC.
Architecture & speed
Playwright drives browsers via the CDP / WebSocket protocol per context, which eliminates the WebDriver round-trip overhead.
Developer experience
Playwright ships codegen, trace viewer, and a VS Code extension; flake-hunting is genuinely faster. Selenium has the larger ecosystem (Selenide, SerenityBDD, Selenoid) but you assemble the stack yourself.
- Auto-wait removes most ElementNotInteractableException flakes
- Built-in retries + test isolation per browser context
- Network mocking without a separate proxy
When Selenium still wins
Pick Selenium if you need IE/legacy Edge support, deep BiDi integration with existing Grid, or your hiring market is heavy on Java/SerenityBDD. Many enterprise pipelines also have years of Page Objects you don't want to rewrite.
When Playwright wins
Greenfield projects, teams that want a single tool for desktop + mobile web, or anyone tired of flaky waits. The trace viewer alone cuts debug time for new hires.