LambdaTest vs Currents

In this article, we'll compare Currents and LambdaTest specifically for Playwright testing, to help you make an informed decision. We'll be looking at LambdaTest's Automation Cloud product.

Overview

LambdaTest

LambdaTest is a cloud-based platform with a wide array of tools covering browser automation, visual testing, test management, and more. However, LambdaTest’s broad scope comes at the cost of depth.

How it Works

1. Playwright connects to LambdaTest's remote browser.
2. The browser loads the application under test and execute the tests.
3. Test results are collected in LambdaTest's Automation Cloud dashboard.

Its Playwright integration is limited, as it doesn't offer a native Playwright reporter. It lacks support for core Playwright features such as tags, attempts, annotations, traces, retries, visual snapshots, and more.

LambdaTest setup requires execution to be proxied through their remote browser, there's no option to run a local browser and report results back to their dashboard. Their setup also requires your Playwright tests to expose the test status and error stacktrace, by injecting JavaScript in the page being tested.

Debugging failed CI runs can also be difficult: tests run remotely, and failures often show up with minimal context or logs in the dashboard, especially in cases like timeouts or infrastructure issues.

Furthermore, flakiness detection is not available for Playwright (as of June 3rd, 2025), making it a big challenge to manage complex test suites.

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. Its native Playwright reporter integrates with existing CI/CD pipelines to optimize test execution, provide real-time insights, and enhance team productivity. It offers reporting, debugging, analytics, flaky test detection, 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

LambdaTest splits its features across multiple products with separate pricing tiers, which can lead to significant costs for teams needing a full suite of test management, analytics, and automation features.

In contrast, Currents offers a simple, all-in-one subscription with predictable pricing and no feature gating — making it a more cost-effective solution for teams focused on Playwright.

Feature Comparison: LambdaTest vs. Currents

1. Debugging

Debugging failures in LambdaTest can be frustrating when tests are aborted early. In the example above, a test times out, but the dashboard shows almost no useful information. The status says "Cancelled" instead of "Failed". There are no console logs, no error details, and no insight into where the test got stuck. Since the test ran remotely, reproducing the failure locally becomes harder, and you're left guessing what went wrong.

By contrast, Currents shows you everything! Even when a test crashes or times out. Since each step is streamed in near real-time, each test attempt is tracked with full context: logs, errors, console output, traces, screenshots, and videos. You can immediately see the last executed step before the failure, making it much easier to understand what went wrong and fix the issue quickly.

2. Playwright Native Capabilities

LambdaTest: Supports screenshots, videos, errors, network logs, and console logs. Since LambdaTest is just a remote browser and not an actual Playwright reporter, it offers no support for features like test annotations, trace viewer, code coverage, visual testing or tags.

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

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

Note: LambdaTest supports Visual Testing with their Visual Regression Testing Cloud product, which does not leverage Playwright and is charged separately.

3. Test Attempts

One of the biggest differences between Currents and LambdaTest is how they handle test retries.

LambdaTest doesn’t recognize test attempts. If a test fails and then passes on retry, it still shows both outcomes separately, and the whole run is marked as failed. This makes it hard to trust the results, and it clutters the dashboard with duplicate tests that are really just retries.

Currents tracks retries properly. It shows every attempt, with full debugging info like screenshots, logs, and traces for each one. If a retry passes, the run is marked as successful, and the test is flagged as flaky.

Feature Comparison Table

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

Category	LambdaTest	Currents
Setup & Integration	Not a reporter Requires extending .test()	Single package installation Minimal configuration needed
Test Execution and Performance	Remote-browser test execution Parallel Browsers	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	No Flakiness Detection	Real-time test results streaming Flaky test detection Automated email reports
Debug Capabilities	Screenshots & Videos Network logs and console data	Screenshots, Videos & Artifacts Network logs and console data Real-time reporting Step-by-step execution logs Tags Interactive trace viewer
Analytics	Highly-customizable dashboards	Trend analysis and insights Code Coverage Performance bottleneck analysis
Workflow Automation	CI/CD integration	Currents Actions CI/CD integrations API Access Webhooks
Team Collaboration	Real-time team access Shared dashboards Many integrations	Real-time team access Shared dashboards Notes Slack integration MS Teams integration GitHub integration GitLab integration BitBucket integration
Security	Many security certifications 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	Subscription-based Different products charges separately Email & Chat support included	Subscription-based Predictable pricing Includes all features Email & Chat support included

Conclusion

LambdaTest has built an impressive platform with a wide range of products, including real device testing and extensive browser coverage. It’s a strong choice for teams needing broad testing infrastructure and access to diverse environments.

However, for teams invested in Playwright, using a platform with a native reporter is key to fully leverage the framework’s capabilities. Currents stands out as the purpose-built choice. With native Playwright support, real-time streaming, intelligent orchestration, and deep GitHub/GitLab integrations, Currents enables faster feedback cycles, deeper debugging, simpler CI workflows, and more efficient scaling.

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