Playwright is a modern end-to-end testing framework developed by Microsoft for testing web applications across Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit browsers. Built on a multi-browser, multi-platform architecture, Playwright enables reliable automation through features like auto-waiting, web-first assertions, and browser context isolation. Unlike older tools that rely on polling and explicit waits, Playwright's actionability checks and parallel execution capabilities make it a top choice for creating fast, stable, and maintainable test suites that scale with modern CI/CD pipelines.