Test automation is one of those areas where tool choice matters less than you'd think — and more than you can afford to ignore. Pick something your team can maintain, and that matches the shape of your application.
A simple decision framework
- Match the team's language. A JavaScript-only product team will get more mileage out of Playwright than Selenium with Java.
- Test the same level your bugs live at. If most regressions are at the API layer, invest in API tests before chasing visual regression.
- Prefer fewer, more reliable tests. A small suite that passes every time is more useful than a large suite people learn to ignore.
Where we usually land
For Laravel + Vue/React applications, we tend to recommend Pest/PHPUnit for backend and Playwright for end-to-end. They are fast, modern, and have great developer ergonomics.