5.2Installation

Playwright supports multiple languages. TypeScript/JavaScript is the primary ecosystem with the richest tooling; Python is the most common alternative in QA teams.

TypeScript (recommended)

# Create a new project and install Playwright
npm init playwright@latest

# This scaffolds:
#   playwright.config.ts   — configuration
#   tests/                 — test directory
#   tests/example.spec.ts  — sample test
#   package.json           — dependencies

Python

pip install playwright
playwright install  # downloads browser binaries

What playwright install Does

Playwright bundles its own browser binaries — specific versions of Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit that are tested against each Playwright release. This eliminates the "which ChromeDriver version matches my Chrome?" problem that Selenium teams struggle with.