Moving from Selenium to Playwright

The hardest part of moving to Playwright isn’t the rewrite, it’s unlearning how your tests used to work.

In this session, Renata Andrade, Playwright instructor and Software Engineer at Adobe, walks through a real migration, starting with a structured evaluation and decision process, then showing what actually changed as the team moved from Selenium to Playwright. Rather than comparing features, she focuses on the architectural differences that drive a different testing model, and why teams run into trouble when they try to carry old patterns forward.

The session features side-by-side code comparisons showing how Playwright built-ins like auto-waiting, fixtures, and trace tooling eliminate Selenium’s complex setup and boilerplate. You will explore how AI aids migration, the limitations of traditional screenshot comparison, and the benefits of AI-based visual testing. Finally, it examines the shift to writing native Playwright code and its positive impact on test maintainability.

Key takeaways:

• How a structured evaluation POC informs a Selenium to Playwright migration decision
• What changes at the protocol level and why it leads to a different testing model
• Common migration traps, including porting patterns, overusing waits, and underusing fixtures
• How Playwright built-ins reduce boilerplate and improve test reliability
• Why screenshot comparison falls short and what a scalable Visual AI approach looks like