---
title: Playwriter vs Claude Browser Extension
sidebarTitle: vs Claude Extension
description: Any MCP client, full Playwright API, and cross-platform support.
icon: lucide:bot
---

The Claude Browser Extension lets Claude interact with your browser through screenshots
and DOM inspection. It's tightly coupled to Claude and uses a screenshot-based approach
for page understanding.

Playwriter works with **any MCP client** (Claude, Cursor, OpenCode, Windsurf, and more) and
uses accessibility snapshots instead of screenshots by default.

## Comparison

|  | Claude Extension | Playwriter |
|---|---|---|
| Agent support | Claude only | Any MCP client |
| Windows/WSL | No | Yes |
| Context method | Screenshots (100KB+) | A11y snapshots (5-20KB) |
| Playwright API | No | Full |
| Debugger | No | Yes |
| Live code editing | No | Yes |
| Network interception | Limited | Full |
| Raw CDP access | No | Yes |

## Context efficiency

Screenshots are expensive. Each one is 100KB+ of image tokens the model must process.
Playwriter's accessibility snapshots are **5-20KB of text** that contain every interactive
element with ready-to-use locators. The agent can parse them without vision, which is
faster and cheaper.

When spatial layout matters (dashboards, image galleries), Playwriter offers
`screenshotWithAccessibilityLabels` which overlays Vimium-style ref labels on interactive
elements. You get visual context with actionable references in one call.

## Cross-platform and client-agnostic

The Claude extension only works with Claude. Playwriter works with any tool that supports
MCP or can call a CLI. Switch from Claude to Cursor to a custom script without changing
your browser setup.

```bash
# Works with any MCP client, any agent
playwriter session new
playwriter -s 1 -e "snapshot({ page })"
playwriter -s 1 -e "page.locator('button:has-text(\"Submit\")').click()"
```

## Advanced capabilities

Playwriter exposes the full Chrome DevTools Protocol. Set breakpoints, step through code,
inspect variables, edit page scripts live, intercept network requests, and profile
performance. None of this is possible with the Claude extension.
