Selenium

Selenium is the 20-year veteran of browser automation — the tool that defined the category and still runs test suites at most Fortune 500 companies. It supports every browser, every language, and every CI system. But in 2026, it's showing its age.

Skip Selenium for new projects. Playwright is faster, more stable (92% vs Selenium's ~70% reliability rate), has better APIs, and handles modern web apps without the timing nightmares that plague Selenium tests. Cypress is solid for component testing but limited to Chromium and Firefox. If you're already deep in a Selenium suite, WebDriver BiDi in v4+ narrows the gap.

The catch: Selenium's ubiquity is both its strength and trap. Millions of existing tests mean it's not going anywhere, but new features land slowly and the DX is a decade behind Playwright. If you're starting fresh, there's no reason to choose Selenium over Playwright in 2026. The ecosystem is mature; the tool is not.