head to head · open source
playwright vs obscura
playwright has 96,380 GitHub stars, 6,469 forks, 185 open issues and last shipped today. obscura has 27,406 stars, 2,011 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped yesterday. playwright leads on adoption by 252% (96,380 vs 27,406 stars). playwright is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. playwright has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, obscura 7%. playwright was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (playwright), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| playwright | obscura | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 27K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.5K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick playwright if
- You weight community size — 96K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick obscura if
- You want the obscura feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and obscura fits your workflow better
About playwright
Playwright is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed TypeScript framework for web testing and browser automation that drives Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit through a single API, built for end to end testers, browser automation script writers, and AI coding agents.
read the full playwright overview →
About obscura
Obscura is an open source headless browser engine written in Rust, built for web scraping and AI agent automation. It runs real JavaScript through V8, speaks the Chrome DevTools Protocol, and presents itself as a drop in replacement for headless Chrome when driven by Puppeteer or Playwright. The project lives in the browser automation and headless browser corner of the Rust ecosystem, and it ships under the Apache 2.0 license.
read the full obscura overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is playwright or obscura more popular?
playwright has 96,380 GitHub stars and obscura has 27,406. playwright has the larger community by that measure.
Are playwright and obscura free?
Both are open source. playwright is licensed under Apache-2.0 and obscura under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between playwright and obscura?
playwright is written in TypeScript and obscura in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, playwright or obscura?
Choose playwright if you want the larger community (96,380 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose obscura if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.