Playwright Mode

Playwright Mode uses rustwright, a native Rust CDP engine, to drive Chromium with a Playwright-compatible API. It can bypass bot-detection systems that target WebDriver fingerprints without requiring a Node Playwright driver.

Enable the feature#

The feature is off by default, so a plain build does not compile rustwright. Enable it in Cargo.toml or on the command line:

[dependencies]seleniumbase-rs = { git = "https://github.com/MustCodeAl/seleniumbase-rs", features = ["playwright"] }

cargo run --example playwright_mode --features playwright

Chromium installation#

rustwright finds a Chromium on the machine or downloads a build on first launch (that is rustwright’s behavior, not this crate’s). Ensure the build host can reach the Chromium CDN, or install Chromium where rustwright looks for it.

To use a Chromium of your own, give BrowserConfig::browser_binary_path (or SB_CHROME_BIN); launch_with_config and activate_playwright_mode pass it on.

Example#

# #[cfg(feature = "playwright")]# async fn example() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {use seleniumbase_rs::{BaseCase, BrowserConfig};let mut sb = BaseCase::new(BrowserConfig::default()).await?;sb.activate_playwright_mode().await?;if let Some(session) = sb.playwright_session() {    session.goto("https://example.com").await?;    let heading = session.get_text("h1").await?;    println!("Page heading: {heading}");}// Closes the Playwright browser and the WebDriver one.sb.quit().await?;# Ok(())# }

To use the Playwright session on its own, with no WebDriver browser, launch it directly with launch_with_config. The configuration decides whether it runs without a window (BrowserConfig::default() is headless; with_headless(false) opens one), which browser binary, proxy, user agent, window size and Fingerprint it uses. launch_headless, launch_with_fingerprint and launch_headless_with_fingerprint still work but are deprecated shortcuts for that:

# #[cfg(feature = "playwright")]# async fn example() -> Result<(), seleniumbase_rs::SeleniumBaseError> {use seleniumbase_rs::browser::playwright::PlaywrightSession;use seleniumbase_rs::BrowserConfig;let config = BrowserConfig::default().with_headless(true);let session = PlaywrightSession::launch_with_config(&config).await?;session.goto("https://example.com").await?;println!("{}", session.get_text("h1").await?);session.close().await?;# Ok(())# }

To drive a browser that is already running, attach to its DevTools endpoint with connect_over_cdp. The session works on the page the browser has open, and close only detaches, so the browser keeps running. This is Python’s own route to Playwright, sb.cdp.get_endpoint_url() and connect_over_cdp:

# #[cfg(feature = "playwright")]# async fn example() -> Result<(), seleniumbase_rs::SeleniumBaseError> {use seleniumbase_rs::browser::playwright::PlaywrightSession;use seleniumbase_rs::sb_cdp::{Browser, LaunchOptions};let browser = Browser::launch(LaunchOptions::default()).await?;let session = PlaywrightSession::connect_over_cdp(&browser.http_url()).await?;println!("{}", session.evaluate("document.title").await?);session.close().await?; // detachesbrowser.close().await?;# Ok(())# }

Notes#

• Playwright mode is optional; the default build does not include the rustwright engine.
• The session API is async and mirrors the WebDriver-backed helpers where practical (goto, click, type_text, get_text, evaluate, screenshot, close, plus new_page). src/api/playwright.rs has thin pw_* function wrappers over the same methods.
• For WebDriver-based stealth use DriverMode::Uc or DriverMode::Cdp. For a Chrome session with no WebDriver at all and no extra dependency, see the pure CDP engine.

Troubleshooting#