BrowserStack vs Currents

When it comes to cloud-based testing solutions, BrowserStack is a name that often comes up. Known for its extensive cross-browser testing capabilities and a wide range of testing products, BrowserStack became a popular choice among developers and QA engineers.

In this article, we'll explore how Currents and BrowserStack compare across various aspects when it comes to Playwright testing to help you make an informed decision.

Overview

BrowserStack

BrowserStack is a cloud-based testing platform that provides remote browser testing capabilities across multiple devices and environments. It offers manual test management solutions and automated testing support for various frameworks including Playwright, along with features like flaky test detection and analytics.

While BrowserStack provides a comprehensive suite of testing tools, its broad focus on cross-browser and manual testing means the platform comes with multiple products and separate pricing models.

How it Works

1. Playwright runs on your CI/CD pipeline.
2. Playwright connects to remote BrowserStack-hosted browsers (BrowserStack Automate).
3. These browsers load the application under test and execute the tests.
4. Test results are collected in BrowserStack's Test Observability dashboard.
5. Test cases are automatically added to BrowserStack's Test Management dashboard.

Alternatively, users can choose to run Playwright tests on a local browser and still report the results to BrowserStack's Test Observability platform, without using BrowserStack's hosted browsers.

Currents

Currents is a cloud-based test observability platform designed to optimize test execution. It is particularly effective for managing large test suites and ensuring their reliability over time.

Currents is designed as a best-in-class Playwright observability platform that integrates with existing CI/CD pipelines to optimize test execution, provides real-time insights, and enhances team productivity. It provides reporting, debugging, analytics, faster executions with test orchestration, and historical insights.

How it Works

1. Playwright runs on your own CI/CD pipeline.
2. Currents orchestrates test execution to optimize parallel runs.
3. Playwright uses browsers running on your CI.
4. Test results are collected in the Currents dashboard.

Understanding the Total Cost of Ownership

BrowserStack’s pricing model is built around a large suite of over 12 different products. These products are priced separately, with an steep starting price and often based on custom contracts. This model can quickly become costly for teams looking to utilize multiple functionalities.

In contrast, Currents provides a simplified subscription-based offering for Playwright users, with no feature-gating, making it a more cost-effective solution for teams looking to utilize multiple functionalities.

Feature Comparison: BrowserStack vs. Currents

1. Test Orchestration and Parallelization

BrowserStack: Provides no additional parallelization options. Users can leverage BrowserStack's browser grid and Playwright Sharding to run tests in parallel, but this means manual setup and additional costs.

Currents: Offers multiple optimized parallel execution strategies, at no extra cost, including intelligent test orchestration and running CI Tests on Spot Instances. This feature ensures efficient use of resources and reduced test run times by distributing tests smartly across available CI infrastructure.

2. Integrations

Both tools offer a wide range of integrations. While BrowserStack offers native integrations with JIRA and Asana, Currents offers native integrations with GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, allowing teams to easily quality gate Pull Requests with commit status checks, and staying on top of their tests with run notifications directly on Pull Requests.

Teams looking to quality gate Pull Requests with BrowserStack have to manually build their own pipeline checks using BrowserStack's API.

Integration	BrowserStack	Currents
Git Providers
GitHub	❌	✅
GitLab	❌	✅
BitBucket	❌	✅
Messaging
Slack	✅	✅
MS Teams	❌	✅
Project Management
Jira	✅	Planned
Asana	✅	Planned
Misc
Webhooks	✅	✅
API	✅	✅

3. Playwright Native Capabilities

BrowserStack: Supports tags, screenshots, videos, step-level details, errors, network logs and console logs. No support for test annotations, trace viewer, code coverage or visual testing. The dashboard also makes no distinction between tests from different Playwright projects in the same run.

Currents: Full support for Playwright's native capabilities, including test annotations, trace viewer, code coverage and visual testing.

Unlike BrowserStack and other traditional solutions that upload results after test execution, Currents streams them in real-time. This allows for debugging failed CI runs. Even if an execution crashes, Currents captures the last step that caused the failure, providing crucial information to identify the root cause.

Capability	BrowserStack	Currents
Logs	✅	✅
Errors	✅	✅
Tags	✅	✅
Screenshots	✅	✅
Videos	✅	✅
Trace Viewer	❌	✅
Attachments	❌	✅
Annotations	❌	✅   Learn more
Code Coverage	❌	✅   Learn more
Visual Testing	❌	✅   Learn more

Note: BrowserStack supports Visual Testing with a product called Percy, which does not leverage Playwright and is charged separately.

Feature Comparison Table

Here's a detailed comparison of how these two solutions stack up against each other:

Category	BrowserStack	Currents
Setup & Integration	Single package installation Native support for multiple frameworks Minimal configuration needed	Single package installation Native support for multiple frameworks Minimal configuration needed Automatic artifact collection
Test Execution and Performance	Remote-browser test execution Re-run only failed tests Playwright Sharding Manual CI integration	Advanced test orchestration Smart test distribution Playwright Sharding Re-run only failed tests Running Failed Specs First Fail-Fast Strategy CI Tests on Spot Instances
Reporting	Flaky test detection Quality Gates	Real-time test results streaming Flaky test detection Automated email reports
Debug Capabilities	Step-by-step execution logs Screenshots & Videos Network logs and console data Smart Tags Auto Failure Analysis	Real-time reporting Step-by-step execution logs Screenshots, Videos & Artifacts Network logs and console data Tags Interactive trace viewer
Analytics	Highly-customizable dashboards Test Health Testing Trends	Trend analysis and insights Code Coverage Performance bottleneck analysis
Workflow Automation	Mute tests Manual CI/CD integration API Access Webhooks	Currents Actions CI/CD integrations API Access Webhooks
Team Collaboration	Real-time team access Shared dashboards Comments Jenkins integration Slack integration JIRA integration Asana integration	Real-time team access Shared dashboards Notes Slack integration MS Teams integration GitHub integration GitLab integration BitBucket integration
Security	SOC 2 Type 2 compliance SSO/SAML integration Secure artifact storage Role-based access	SOC 2 Type 2 compliance SSO/SAML integration Secure artifact storage Role-based access
Infrastructure	Cloud-based platform Zero maintenance Automatic scaling Built-in redundancy	Cloud-based platform Zero maintenance Automatic scaling Built-in redundancy
Cost Model	Usage-based Different products charges separately Email support	Subscription-based Predictable pricing Includes all features Email & Chat support included

Conclusion

BrowserStack continues to be a robust and highly capable tool for cross-browser and manual testing, especially for teams needing diverse testing environments. However, for those focused on Playwright testing, Currents offers unique advantages through its deep integration with Playwright, real-time test result streaming, and efficient CI orchestration. While BrowserStack is an excellent choice for broader testing needs, Currents provides a more streamlined and optimized solution for teams prioritizing Playwright efficiency and responsiveness.