Playwright MCP vs Puppeteer MCP: Which Browser Testing Server Wins?

If you are adding browser automation to your AI coding setup, you have two official options: Playwright MCP from Microsoft and Puppeteer MCP from Anthropic. Both let your AI assistant control a real browser, take screenshots, fill forms, and run JavaScript. But they are not interchangeable.

One has 20 tools and 1.4 million weekly downloads. The other has 8 tools and under 16,000 downloads. The gap is not subtle. Here is a detailed breakdown to help you pick the right one.

The Quick Comparison

Tool Coverage

Playwright MCP exposes 20 tools out of the box, with additional tools available through optional capability flags. The core set covers navigation, clicking, typing, form filling, screenshots, accessibility snapshots, JavaScript evaluation, tab management, drag and drop, hovering, keyboard input, file uploads, dropdown selection, dialog handling, window resizing, network request inspection, and console log retrieval.

Puppeteer MCP provides 7 tools: navigate, screenshot, click, fill, select, hover, and evaluate. That covers the basics -- you can navigate to a page, interact with elements, take screenshots, and run JavaScript. But there is no tab management, no file upload handling, no drag and drop, no network inspection, and no accessibility snapshots.

The practical difference is significant. With Playwright MCP, your assistant can open multiple tabs, inspect network requests to debug a failing API call, capture console errors, upload a file to test a form, and read the accessibility tree to understand page structure without relying on screenshots. With Puppeteer MCP, you are limited to single-page interactions and screenshot-based understanding.

The Accessibility Snapshot Advantage

This is the biggest differentiator and the reason Playwright MCP dominates adoption.

Playwright MCP defaults to "snapshot mode," where it reads the page through its accessibility tree rather than analyzing screenshots. The assistant sees the page as a structured hierarchy of elements -- buttons, links, inputs, headings -- each with a label and a reference. This means interactions are deterministic: the assistant clicks a specific element by reference, not by guessing pixel coordinates from a screenshot.

Puppeteer MCP has no equivalent. It relies on CSS selectors for element targeting and screenshots for visual understanding. This works for simple pages but breaks down on complex UIs where selectors are fragile or elements are dynamically generated. Your assistant has to either know the exact selector or use puppeteer_evaluate to query the DOM manually.

The accessibility approach is also more token-efficient per interaction. A structured snapshot is smaller and more informative than a base64-encoded screenshot. When you are running dozens of browser interactions in a single session, this adds up.

Browser Support

Playwright MCP supports Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. You can specify the browser with the --browser flag, and you can even target specific channels like Microsoft Edge. This means you can test your application across all major rendering engines from the same MCP server.

Puppeteer MCP supports Chromium only. Puppeteer has experimental Firefox support in the underlying library, but the MCP server does not expose it. If cross-browser testing matters to your workflow, this is a dealbreaker.

Token Cost

Playwright MCP uses approximately 10,300 tokens for tool definitions. Puppeteer MCP uses approximately 4,120 tokens. That means Puppeteer MCP costs less than half the context budget just to have available.

This matters in context-constrained environments. If you are running a lightweight agent with a small context window, or if you have many MCP servers active simultaneously, Puppeteer's smaller footprint is a genuine advantage. You only pay for what you need.

However, Playwright MCP compensates for its higher upfront token cost by being more efficient per task. Accessibility snapshots are cheaper than screenshots, and having tools like tab management and network inspection means fewer workarounds and less back-and-forth to accomplish the same goal.

Configuration

Both servers use the same zero-config setup pattern. No API keys, no environment variables. They run locally and launch a browser on demand.

Playwright MCP

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "playwright": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@playwright/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

To enable additional capabilities like vision mode or PDF generation:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "playwright": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@playwright/mcp", "--caps=vision,pdf"]
    }
  }
}

Puppeteer MCP

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "puppeteer": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-puppeteer"]
    }
  }
}

Both configurations work with Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Code, and other MCP-compatible clients. Copy the JSON into your client's MCP configuration file and you are ready to go.

Download Numbers Tell the Story

Playwright MCP has over 1.4 million weekly downloads. Puppeteer MCP has around 15,600. That is a 91x difference.

Part of this is momentum -- Microsoft ships Playwright MCP as the recommended browser automation server in their own docs, and the accessibility snapshot approach has proven more reliable for AI-driven interactions. Part of it is ecosystem: Playwright MCP is the browser server that most AI coding tools suggest by default.

Puppeteer MCP's GitHub repository (the modelcontextprotocol/servers monorepo) has more stars at 79,000+ versus Playwright MCP's 27,500+, but that star count reflects the entire MCP servers collection, not Puppeteer specifically. It is not a meaningful comparison.

When to Use Puppeteer MCP

Puppeteer MCP still makes sense in a few scenarios:

• Minimal context budget. If you are running many MCP servers and need to minimize token overhead, Puppeteer's 4,120 tokens versus Playwright's 10,300 is meaningful.
• Simple automation tasks. If you only need to navigate, screenshot, and click, Puppeteer covers those basics without the overhead of 20 tools you will not use.
• Existing Puppeteer expertise. If your team already uses Puppeteer for testing and you want the MCP interactions to align with your existing mental model, Puppeteer MCP keeps things consistent.
• Anthropic ecosystem alignment. Puppeteer MCP is maintained in Anthropic's official MCP servers repository, so if you prefer sticking to first-party Anthropic tooling, it is there.

When to Use Playwright MCP

For most developers, Playwright MCP is the better choice:

• You need cross-browser testing. Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit support means you can verify behavior across all major engines.
• You want reliable element targeting. Accessibility snapshots are more robust than CSS selectors for AI-driven interaction.
• Your workflows are complex. Tab management, file uploads, drag and drop, network inspection, and console monitoring cover real-world testing scenarios that Puppeteer MCP cannot handle.
• You are building or testing production applications. The broader tool set means fewer workarounds and more reliable results.

The Verdict

Playwright MCP wins on capabilities, reliability, browser support, and ecosystem adoption. It is the default choice for AI-assisted browser automation in 2026, and the download numbers reflect that.

Puppeteer MCP is a lighter alternative that covers basic browser interactions with less token overhead. It is a reasonable choice if you have specific constraints, but for most workflows, Playwright MCP is strictly better.

If you want a pre-configured stack that includes Playwright MCP alongside other servers for your workflow, check out the Frontend Developer Stack or the QA Testing Stack on stackmcp.dev. Each stack includes ready-to-copy configurations for Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and other clients.