Comparing playwright with agent-browser
- **Playwright** = a **browser automation library** (code-first).
- **Agent-browser** = an **AI-driven browser operator** (goal-first).
What’s different:
- **How you control it**
- Playwright: you write explicit steps (`goto`, `click`, `fill`…)
- Agent-browser: you give intent (“book this flight”, “find cheapest plan”), agent decides steps
- **Determinism**
- Playwright: highly deterministic/reproducible
- Agent-browser: more adaptive, but less predictable run-to-run
- **Best for**
- Playwright: tests, stable workflows, scraping with known structure
- Agent-browser: messy UIs, exploratory tasks, semi-autonomous ops
- **Debugging**
- Playwright: straightforward traces and exact failing step
- Agent-browser: harder to debug because planning/reasoning layer is involved
- **Cost/latency**
- Playwright: generally faster/cheaper (no LLM loop)
- Agent-browser: slower/costlier, trades that for flexibility
