Product / UX / Agent tools & protocols

Playwright MCP

MCP server that gives agents browser automation through Playwright: navigating pages, clicking elements, filling forms, taking screenshots and extracting structured data. It works from structured accessibility snapshots rather than screenshots, so the agent reads a page as a tree rather than as pixels. It is backed by Microsoft and integrated with VS Code and Copilot.

The npm artifact was corrected 2026-08-14 from @anthropic-ai/mcp-playwright, which the registry answers 404 for, to @playwright/mcp, the package the README installs and the one api.npmjs.org reports 25,901,643 monthly downloads for. Verified 2026-08-13 via GitHub and the repository LICENSE.

Openness

5 high confidence

5.0

license: Apache-2.0(OSI)
source: public(Microsoft repo)
core-gated: ungated

Fully OSI-licensed Microsoft repo, no open-core split. The LICENSE resolves to the full Apache-2.0 text, and the whole server is in the tree and installed as a single npm package with no key, no enterprise directory and no hosted tier sold beside it.

https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp recorded 2026-08-13
Repo page - Apache-2.0 license badge, full server source, npm install instructions for the MCP clients. No paid tier, license key or enterprise directory.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp/main/LICENSE recorded 2026-08-13
The full Apache License, Version 2.0 text.

Adoption

5 high confidence

5.0

@playwright/mcp is the de facto browser-automation MCP server, shipped or recommended across the major MCP clients (VS Code, Cursor, Claude Code). The band rests on a measured count rather than on integration breadth plus stars, which is why confidence is high: the npm registry reports 25,901,643 downloads of @playwright/mcp over a 30-day window, clearing the >10M floor for level 5. The declared npm artifact is @playwright/mcp rather than @anthropic-ai/mcp-playwright, which the registry answers 404 for, so the package measured here is the one a reader would actually install.

https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp recorded 2026-08-13
36,089 stargazers; integration instructions across VS Code, Cursor, Claude Code and other MCP clients; the package installed is @playwright/mcp.
https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-month/@playwright/mcp recorded 2026-08-14
25,901,643 downloads for the window 2026-07-11 to 2026-08-09.

Capability

4 medium confidence

4.0

Deep, broad browser-control surface (the leading agentic browser tool); scored 4 on the scrape/browse feature matrix, strong coverage but no standardized benchmark and not the single category-definer.

https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp recorded 2026-08-13
Tool list built on accessibility snapshots - navigate, click, type, fill form, screenshot, network requests, console, tabs, file upload, evaluate.

Verified 2026-08-13