Playwright PHP - Modern Browser Automation

About

Playwright for PHP lets you launch real browsers (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit), drive pages and locators, and write
reliable end‑to‑end tests — all from PHP.

Familiar model: browser → context → page → locator
Auto‑waiting interactions reduce flakiness
PHPUnit integration with a base trait and fluent expect() assertions
Cross‑browser: Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit supported
No separate server to manage — a lightweight Node server is started for you

Requirements:

PHP 8.2+
Node.js 20+ (used by the bundled Playwright server and browsers)

Install

Add the library to your project:

bash
composer require playwright-php/playwright

Install the Playwright browsers (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit):

bash
# Run after composer install in your application or in this repository
vendor/bin/playwright-install --browsers

# On fresh machines/CI where you need Playwright's OS dependencies too
vendor/bin/playwright-install --with-deps

# The same commands apply when you work on this repository
# (the script lives in vendor/bin/playwright-install here too)

# Preview commands without changes
vendor/bin/playwright-install --dry-run --with-deps

For advanced install options (including browser cache location), see the
Getting Started guide.

Quick start

Open a page and print its title:

php
<?php

require __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php';

use Playwright\Playwright;

$context = Playwright::chromium(['headless' => true]);
$page = $context->newPage();
$page->goto('https://example.com');

echo $page->title().PHP_EOL; // Example Domain

$context->close();

Documentation

Usage

Browser

Choose a browser: Playwright::chromium(), Playwright::firefox(), or Playwright::webkit().
Playwright::safari() is an alias of webkit().
Common launch options: headless (bool), slowMo (ms), args (array of CLI args), and an optional context array
with context options.

php
$context = Playwright::webkit([
    'headless' => false,
    'slowMo'   => 200,
    'args'     => ['--no-sandbox'],
    // 'context' => [ ... context options ... ],
]);

Page

Create pages, navigate, evaluate scripts, and take screenshots:

php
$page = $context->newPage();
$page->goto('https://example.com');

$html  = $page->content();
$title = $page->title();

$path = $page->screenshot(__DIR__.'/screenshot.png');

Locators and interactions

php
$button = $page->locator('text=Sign in');
$button->click();

$username = $page->locator('#username');
$username->fill('alice@example.com');

$password = $page->locator('#password');
$password->fill('s3cret');
$password->press('Enter');

Storage state and context reuse

php
$context->storageState(__DIR__.'/state.json');

// Later in another process
$ctx = Playwright::chromium([
  'context' => ['storageState' => __DIR__.'/state.json'],
]);

PHPUnit integration

The package provides a testing trait and fluent expect() assertions to write robust E2E tests.

Requirements: PHPUnit 10.0 or higher is required to use the PlaywrightTestCaseTrait.

Minimal example:

php
<?php

use PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase;
use Playwright\Testing\PlaywrightTestCaseTrait;

final class HomePageTest extends TestCase
{
    use PlaywrightTestCaseTrait;

    protected function setUp(): void
    {
        parent::setUp();
        $this->setUpPlaywright();
    }

    protected function tearDown(): void
    {
        $this->tearDownPlaywright();
        parent::tearDown();
    }

    public function test_title_is_correct(): void
    {
        $this->page->goto('https://example.com');

        $this->expect($this->page)->toHaveTitle('Example Domain');
    }
}

Notes:

The trait provides $this->playwright, $this->browser, $this->context, and $this->page properties.
Call setUpPlaywright() in setUp() and tearDownPlaywright() in tearDown() for proper lifecycle management.
Use $this->expect($locator) or $this->expect($page) for fluent assertions.
If you prefer full control, you can skip the trait and use the static Playwright facade directly.

CI usage (GitHub Actions)

Example workflow snippet:

yaml
jobs:
  tests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v2
        with:
          php-version: '8.2'

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: '20'

      - run: composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist

      # Install browsers for Playwright PHP
      - run: vendor/bin/playwright-install --with-deps

      - run: vendor/bin/phpunit --colors=always

Tips:

Cache Node and Composer if you need faster builds.
You can also cache Playwright browsers under ~/.cache/ms-playwright.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please use Conventional Commits, include tests for behavior changes, and ensure docs/examples
are updated when relevant. A typical first run inside the repository is:

bash
composer install                                # installs PHP deps and the bundled Playwright server
vendor/bin/playwright-install --with-deps       # downloads browsers + optional system deps

See docs/contributing/testing.md for more details on the local workflow.