What are the limitations of Playwright?

Playwright is a powerful tool for browser automation, it enables end-to-end testing, crawling websites, and much more. However, like any other tool, it has certain limitations:

1. Limited Support for Non-Browser Protocols: Playwright can only handle HTTP/HTTPS and browser-specific protocols like data: and blob:. It does not support FTP, file downloads, or other non-browser protocols.

2. Limited Support for Browser Extensions: Playwright does not support browser extensions. You can't automate interactions with browser extensions, and they might not work correctly if enabled during a session.

3. Limited Support for Browser-specific Features: Some browser-specific features, such as Firefox's Reader Mode or Safari's Reading List, might not work correctly in Playwright.

4. Limited Support for Mobile Browsers: While Playwright supports mobile emulation, it does not fully support mobile browsers like Safari on iOS or Chrome on Android.

5. Does not Support Internet Explorer: Playwright does not support Internet Explorer. If you need to test on this browser, you might need to use an alternative tool.

6. Challenges with Dynamic Content: Playwright sometimes struggles with pages that have dynamic content or that use heavy JavaScript.

7. Lack of Complete Documentation: While the Playwright documentation is pretty good, it can lack some advanced examples and use cases which can make it difficult for beginners.

8. Asynchronous Nature: Playwright runs asynchronously which can lead to complexities and challenges in handling certain scenarios, especially for those who are not familiar with asynchronous programming.

9. Installation of Browsers: Playwright installs the browsers it needs. While this is generally helpful, it can be an issue if you want to test on a specific version of a browser, or if you have limited disk space.

10. Community and Ecosystem: While growing, Playwright's community is not as large as other tools like Selenium. This means fewer resources, tutorials, and third-party tools.

Despite these limitations, Playwright is a robust and powerful tool for web scraping and automated testing, and for many developers, its benefits outweigh its limitations.