head to head · open source
playwright vs vitest
playwright has 96,326 GitHub stars, 6,461 forks, 185 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vitest has 17,124 stars, 2,008 forks, 425 open issues and last shipped yesterday. playwright leads on adoption by 463% (96,326 vs 17,124 stars). playwright is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; vitest is written in TypeScript under MIT. playwright has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, vitest 12%. playwright was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (test), 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 | vitest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| 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 vitest if
- You want the vitest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and vitest 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 vitest
Vitest is a next generation JavaScript and TypeScript testing framework powered by Vite, built for teams already running Vite who want Jest compatible tests without maintaining a second, separate build pipeline.
read the full vitest overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is playwright or vitest more popular?
playwright has 96,326 GitHub stars and vitest has 17,124. playwright has the larger community by that measure.
Are playwright and vitest free?
Both are open source. playwright is licensed under Apache-2.0 and vitest under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between playwright and vitest?
playwright is written in TypeScript and vitest in TypeScript. 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 vitest?
Choose playwright if you want the larger community (96,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose vitest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.