Selenium vs Playwright 2026

What is Fluent Wait in Selenium and when is it used? Compare it with WebDriverWait, explain how to configure polling interval and ignored exceptions, and give a scenario where Fluent Wait is the only viable option.

What is Parallel Testing and why is it useful in automation? Explain how to configure parallel execution in TestNG using the suite XML, the thread-safety concerns with WebDriver instances, and how to manage them with ThreadLocal.

What are the different wait mechanisms in Selenium (Implicit, Explicit, Fluent Wait), and when should each be used? Explain the downsides of Thread.sleep() and how WebDriverWait improves reliability.

Explain the difference between a Scenario and a Scenario Outline in Cucumber BDD. When would you use a Scenario Outline, and how do you supply multiple data rows using the Examples table? Show a real-world login test example.

Write Playwright code to handle multiple windows (browser contexts/tabs) and perform actions on a new page. Explain the difference between new page events and popup events, and how to wait for a page load before interacting.

What differences do you see between Selenium and Playwright in automation testing? Cover architecture, browser support, speed, built-in waiting mechanisms, and cross-language support.

Explain the difference between PUT and PATCH in REST APIs. When is each appropriate? Show how you would test both verbs using Playwright's APIRequestContext, and explain how to validate partial vs full resource updates.

Explain the different types of locators available in Playwright (CSS, XPath, text, role, test-id). Which are most resilient and why? Explain why role-based locators are preferred over XPath for accessibility and test stability.