Selenium appeared in 2004. That is history, not an insult. In twenty years it became the foundation for an entire browser testing ecosystem. If you use any browser test runner, chances are high that some of its ideas came from Selenium.
That is the real answer to "Selenium vs X": not "which is better", but "which is right for your situation".
What Selenium is and why it was created
Selenium is a set of tools for automating browsers. It was originally created for developers who needed to control a browser from code: open a URL, click an element, read text, and verify a result.
In 2004 this was revolutionary. Browsers could not really be automated programmatically before that. Selenium opened the door to automated web application testing.
Today Selenium is WebDriver API, a W3C standard protocol through which test code talks to the browser.
What you get with Selenium
Full control over every detail. Support for all browsers, including old ones. A huge ecosystem. Documented solutions for almost every weird problem. Support for nearly every programming language.
It is a raw tool. You choose the language, test runner, WebDriver setup, credential storage, reporting, parallel runs, and flaky test strategy. Each of those is a separate engineering problem.
Selenium gives you bricks and says: build whatever you want.
If you like building infrastructure, that is perfect. If your goal is to test a product, not build a testing platform, this may be the wrong level of abstraction.
Why Playwright appeared and how TestManager relates to it
Playwright was created by Microsoft engineers in 2020. They knew Selenium's problems from the inside. Playwright is their answer: faster protocol, native auto-wait, better support for modern web apps, iframes, service workers, and parallel runs.
TestManager runs on Playwright. We chose it because for modern web application testing it is technically better than Selenium for most day-to-day jobs: speed, stability, and support for JavaScript-heavy products.
The difference between TestManager and direct Playwright is not the engine. It is who works with it and how.
Three scenarios and the right choice
They write TypeScript, keep tests in the repo, and DevOps wires CI/CD. Choose Playwright directly.
QA specialists understand scenarios but do not write TypeScript. They need regression coverage as the product grows. Choose TestManager.
You need real support for ancient browsers. Choose Selenium. This is where it still matters.
Speed and reliability matter more than they seem
Slow and unstable tests are the main reason teams abandon automation.
If two hundred regression tests take forty minutes, people start skipping them for "small quick changes". Then a production bug appears that regression should have caught. Then everyone says "automation does not work".
It works. It was just too slow.
Playwright is often two to three times faster than Selenium on modern apps. That is the difference between "run before every commit" and "run once before release". The first is a safety net. The second quickly becomes a ritual.
FAQ
How is Selenium different from TestManager?
Selenium is a low-level browser automation tool used from code. TestManager is a no-code platform for creating and running automated tests, powered by Playwright under the hood.
Selenium or Playwright: what is better today?
For most modern web apps, Playwright is faster, more reliable, and more convenient. Selenium is still the right choice for old browsers or specific vendor integrations.
Can we migrate from Selenium to TestManager?
Yes. Key scenarios can be recorded again through the UI. Complex integration tests may take more time, but critical regression can usually move quickly.
Selenium is free. Does that mean cheaper?
The library is free. The full cost includes setup, infrastructure, maintenance, and engineering time.
Which languages does Selenium support?
Java, Python, C#, JavaScript/Node.js, Ruby, Kotlin, and more. That flexibility is useful, but it also means you own the setup.