21% fewer tool calls
28% less time
46% fewer tokens
33/33 runs done (Playwright 33/33)
Seconds per task
Wink Playwright MCP
Every task, side by side
| Task | Tool calls | Seconds | Tokens in | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wink | Playwright | Wink | Playwright | Wink | Playwright | |
| Sign-up formFill it in, submit, report the error and the failing request | 6 | 7 | 11.5 | 13.4 | 51k | 71k |
| To-do appAdd three, complete one, delete one, filter | 4 | 12 | 9.3 | 13.6 | 51k | 93k |
| WikipediaSearch, open the article, read a date from the infobox | 3 | 4 | 8.8 | 12.7 | 50k | 87k |
| Page dialogsAnswer a confirm and a prompt | 7 | 7 | 9.4 | 12.8 | 63k | 139k |
| File uploadAttach two files | 4 | 5 | 7.2 | 13.0 | 37k | 104k |
| Drag and dropA card between columns, a knob along a rail | 5 | 5 | 6.9 | 9.6 | 37k | 70k |
| Mock an APIMake a broken API answer, then sign up | 5 | 6 | 9.2 | 10.6 | 51k | 53k |
| Go offlineOffline and back, reading the page each time | 5 | 7 | 9.1 | 15.3 | 49k | 121k |
| Cookies and storageReport what a page stored | 5 | 5 | 7.3 | 11.6 | 37k | 68k |
| Save a PDFPrint the page to a file | 2 | 2 | 6.9 | 8.1 | 36k | 50k |
| Record a videoFilm two clicks | 6 | 6 | 9.1 | 11.5 | 49k | 86k |
| All 11 | 52 | 66 | 95 | 132 | 510k | 939k |
On real websites
Six public sites, with two Claude models, both browsers headless and private. Medians of two runs. Wink was ahead on steps, time and tokens with both models: with Sonnet 16%, 5% and 30% ahead, with Haiku 56%, 26% and 53%. A few sites came within a few tenths of a second either way.
Sonnet 5.5
| Site | Done | Tool calls | Seconds | Tokens in | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wink | Playwright | Wink | Playwright | Wink | Playwright | Wink | Playwright | |
| Sauce Demo checkoutLog in, fill a cart, check out, read the total | 2/2 | 2/2 | 1 | 1.5 | 8.3 | 8.4 | 25k | 42k |
| Dynamic loadingStart a slow load, read what appears | 2/2 | 2/2 | 1 | 3 | 11.4 | 13.3 | 24k | 68k |
| TodoMVC (React)Add three, complete one, clear completed | 2/2 | 2/2 | 1 | 2 | 6.1 | 7.8 | 25k | 50k |
| Hacker NewsThe top story and its points | 2/2 | 2/2 | 3.5 | 2 | 8.9 | 8.6 | 55k | 50k |
| GitHubA repository's stars | 2/2 | 2/2 | 2 | 2 | 7.5 | 6.9 | 36k | 34k |
| MDNFind one fact in long documentation | 2/2 | 2/2 | 2 | 2 | 7.8 | 7.7 | 37k | 43k |
| All | 12/12 | 12/12 | 10.5 | 12.5 | 50 | 53 | 203k | 288k |
Haiku 5.5
| Site | Done | Tool calls | Seconds | Tokens in | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wink | Playwright | Wink | Playwright | Wink | Playwright | Wink | Playwright | |
| Sauce Demo checkoutLog in, fill a cart, check out, read the total | 2/2 | 2/2 | 2 | 11 | 7.4 | 13.8 | 41k | 154k |
| Dynamic loadingStart a slow load, read what appears | 2/2 | 2/2 | 2.5 | 4.5 | 10.8 | 12.4 | 39k | 64k |
| TodoMVC (React)Add three, complete one, clear completed | 2/2 | 2/2 | 4 | 12 | 7.6 | 14.1 | 61k | 209k |
| Hacker NewsThe top story and its points | 2/2 | 2/2 | 3 | 3.5 | 6.0 | 5.8 | 52k | 71k |
| GitHubA repository's stars | 2/2 | 2/2 | 2 | 2 | 5.2 | 4.7 | 39k | 35k |
| MDNFind one fact in long documentation | 2/2 | 2/2 | 2.5 | 3.5 | 6.2 | 7.2 | 46k | 65k |
| All | 12/12 | 12/12 | 16 | 36.5 | 43 | 58 | 278k | 598k |
Many at once
Private headless sessions running side by side on one Mac (an M3 with 16 GB), each adding ten to-dos through its MCP server, scripted, with no model in the loop. Every session in both browsers finished.
| Sessions at once | All finished in | Peak memory | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wink | Playwright | Wink | Playwright | |
| 1 | 2.0 s | 6.6 s | 0.6 GB | 1.3 GB |
| 4 | 2.2 s | 8.1 s | 2.7 GB | 4.1 GB |
| 8 | 3.3 s | 9.5 s | 5.2 GB | 7.5 GB |
What each can do
| Capability | Wink | Playwright MCP |
|---|---|---|
| Click, type, keys, forms, hover, scroll | Yes | Yes |
| Drag and drop, file upload, page dialogs | Yes; uploads ask you first | Yes |
| Console, network requests in full | Yes | Yes |
| Mock the network, go offline | Yes | Yes, with an option turned on |
| Cookies and storage | Yes; values hidden outside localhost | Yes, with an option turned on |
| Phone sizes, dark mode, PDF, video | Yes | Yes, partly with options turned on |
| Check the page, write a test | Yes; checks verified before they're written | Yes |
| Step-by-step trace | Yes: a timeline of steps with screenshots, console and network | Yes, with an option turned on |
| Headless, isolated, several at once | Yes: a private throwaway Wink per agent, on a Mac; 8 at once about 3× faster, with 31% less memory | Yes, on any platform |
| Runs in CI | Yes, on macOS runners; its tests on any | Yes, anywhere |
| Firefox and WebKit engines | Through the tests it writes (checked on every change, on Linux) | Yes |
| A whole known flow in one call | Yes: batch, by selector or label, every step guarded | Yes: run_code, which Playwright calls unsafe |
| Your own browser, your logins | Yes, with your consent | With a browser extension |
| You see it work, pause it, stop it | Yes | No |
| Asks before it sends, buys, deletes or uploads | Yes | No |
| Set-up in Claude Code | None: Wink adds itself | Node and a config line |
| Tool descriptions the agent rereads every turn | 25 KB (37 tools) | 42 KB (60 tools) with the same options |
Why it takes fewer steps
-
It says what changed
After each click Wink reports only the difference: a box now checked, a button gone, a counter now reading “1 item left”. The agent rarely needs to look at the whole page again.
-
Its references hold
When a page redraws a list, Wink's handles follow their elements. In our runs, Playwright's went stale once and the agent had to start that step over.
-
It reads what you ask
Ask for one fact and Wink returns the rows that mention it, not the whole article. Fill a form in one call, or run a sequence in one batch.
-
It keeps the cache warm
Wink describes the same abilities in 37 tools where Playwright needs 60, about 40% less text to reread every turn, and identically each time, so the agent's prompt cache keeps hitting.
What only Wink does
-
Your browser, in plain sight
The agent works in a browser you can see, with a glow, a cursor and a log. Click into its page and it pauses. ⇧⌘. stops every agent.
-
It asks first
Wink asks before an agent sends, buys, deletes, connects or uploads anything. Your own app on localhost is exempt, because you're building it.
-
Nothing to set up
Install Wink and Claude Code can use it, with no Node and no config. Wink opens only when an agent first browses, and keeps working if your screen locks.
-
It writes the test
Ask the agent to export what it did, and Wink writes a Playwright test with checks verified on the live page. The tests from our runs pass in Chromium, Firefox and WebKit.
When Playwright is still the tool
Wink runs on Macs, on Chromium. For test suites on Linux or Windows servers, in Firefox's and Safari's own engines, or headless by the hundred on a server farm, use Playwright. Wink writes the Playwright tests those servers run, so you can use both.
How we measured
Claude Code 2.1.322 with Claude Sonnet 5.5, run headless (claude -p) with one browser connected and its other tools off. Wink 0.8.1 in its headless mode (a private, throwaway instance per session) against Playwright MCP 0.0.85 (headless, isolated, Chrome), with Playwright's network, storage, PDF and DevTools options turned on so it had a tool for every task. The eleven tasks ran with Claude Sonnet 5.5; the six real websites with Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Haiku 5.5. Each of the eleven tasks ran three times per browser and each website twice per browser and model, taking turns, on 11 November 2026, all on the build released as 0.8.1; figures are the median run, so one slow run can’t tip them. Every run completed its task. Playwright’s video task was run again after we found we had removed the ffmpeg download it needs for video; the rerun covered both browsers. Tokens are input tokens, cached ones included. Ten of the eleven tasks used small test pages on the same Mac and one the live Wikipedia; the websites were Sauce Demo, The Internet, TodoMVC, Hacker News, GitHub and MDN. Every prompt was the same for both. The tests Wink exported pass in Playwright on Chromium, Firefox and WebKit. Wink's code is open source: github.com/wink-browser/wink.
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