The core conclusion first: pick Playwright MCP when any agent needs its own browser for automation and testing, and Claude for Chrome when the task lives behind your logins and you're a Claude user. They're opposite architectures, not interchangeable tools, and that difference decides cost, login state, who owns your window, and which agents you can use.
Neither covers 'any agent + my logins + not my window.' That's the slot ego (lite) fills, free: every site you've signed into stays signed in, any agent that can run a shell command can drive it, and it works in its own Space so your window stays yours.
Playwright MCP is a protocol server: it launches a browser for the agent and streams page structure back as text. Claude for Chrome is an in-browser extension: Claude moves into the Chrome you already use, sessions and all. Here's the honest comparison, plus the setup that combines what each route gets right.
What are the two routes, really?
The protocol route: Playwright MCP is an open-source MCP server from Microsoft that starts a browser, snapshots each page's accessibility tree as structured text, and executes the model's clicks and form fills. Any MCP-capable agent connects with one config line:
claude mcp add playwright npx @playwright/mcp@latestThe extension route: Claude for Chrome is Anthropic's browser extension, in beta on all paid Claude plans. Per Anthropic, it "can navigate, click, and fill forms in your browser" and works with Claude Code and Claude Desktop for end-to-end workflows; from Claude Code you attach it with claude --chrome. The operative phrase is your browser: it acts inside the Chrome profile you're signed into, with your cookies and sessions.
So the real question isn't which tool is better. It's whether you want the agent visiting the web as a stranger, or living in your house.
How do they compare on the five dimensions that matter?
Five dimensions decide the choice in practice. Read the table for the verdict, then the notes below for the evidence.
| Dimension | Playwright MCP | Claude for Chrome |
|---|---|---|
| Which agents can use it | Any MCP client: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, VS Code, Windsurf. Can't serve agents without MCP support. | Claude only. Can't connect Cursor, Codex, or a custom agent. |
| Login state | Fresh profile by default: no cookies, no sessions. Auth is yours to script. | Full access to your signed-in sessions (Gmail, dashboards, CRMs) with zero setup. |
| Whose window it works in | Its own separate browser instance. Doesn't touch yours, but you can't lend it your logins. | The Chrome you're actively using. While it works, that tab is occupied territory. |
| Token cost | Heavy: full accessibility snapshots per action, 50K+ tokens on complex pages, 114K reported on one Salesforce tree. | Lighter per action in independent testing, but still bounded by your plan's usage limits. |
| Price | Free, open source under Apache-2.0. | Requires any paid Claude plan; the extension itself has no separate price. |
Two receipts worth naming. On tokens: ayyaztech's February 2026 hands-on test of all three Claude Code browser tools found Playwright MCP's per-action snapshots "can be 50,000+ tokens on complex pages," while the extension sent the lightest per-action payloads. On login state: the same test called Claude in Chrome the only one of the three that handles authenticated workflows out of the box.
Even the baseline footprints differ before any work happens: that test counted 33+ registered tools for Playwright MCP against 16 for the extension, with tool definitions alone taking roughly 6.8% and 7.7% of the context window respectively. Neither number is fatal; the per-action snapshot cost is what separates them at step twenty.
One more data point the marketing page won't show you: the extension's Chrome Web Store listing sits at 13,000,000 users and a 2.8-star average across 1.5K ratings. Massive adoption, mixed reviews. That's what beta software at scale looks like, and it's worth knowing before you hand it your signed-in browser.
Which route fits which scenario?
Split by task type and the choice mostly makes itself.
Pick the protocol route for automation and testing. Say you're wiring browser checks into a workflow: run against staging, run headless in CI, run on Firefox and WebKit, keep every step reproducible. Playwright MCP is built for exactly this, and a fresh profile is a feature in testing, not a bug: you want the logged-out, deterministic view.
Pick the extension for daily web chores inside your accounts. Say the task is "pull this week's numbers from the analytics dashboard and draft the update": that data lives behind your login, and Claude for Chrome walks in without any credential scripting. Anthropic's own example list (dashboard metrics, Drive cleanup, CRM logging) is all this shape.
The friction shows up when one person has both shapes, which is most developers. You end up paying the protocol route's token bill for automation, then losing your browser to the extension for account tasks, and neither config transfers.
A concrete week: Monday you're running regression checks against staging, so Playwright MCP earns its keep. Wednesday you need last month's invoices pulled from three vendor portals you're signed into, so you switch to the extension and surrender your browser while it clicks through. Thursday you want both at once, and now the seams show.
What does neither route cover?
Line the two architectures up and a hole appears between them: an agent-agnostic browser that has your logins but isn't your window. Playwright MCP gives any agent a browser, minus your sessions. Claude for Chrome gives you sessions, minus every non-Claude agent, and it borrows the browser you're working in to do it.
ego (lite) is built for that hole. It's a free browser built for sharing your logged-in browser state with AI agents like Claude Code and Codex: every site you've signed into stays signed in, and the agent inherits that state.
Any agent that can run a shell command can drive it through the ego-browser skill, so it isn't tied to one vendor. And the agent works in its own Space, an isolated workspace with its own tabs, so your window stays yours while tasks run in parallel.
The token model borrows from the CLI school rather than the snapshot school: the agent writes a short script, the whole multi-step workflow runs outside the model, and only the result returns to context. On complex tasks it finishes up to 3.45x faster than agent-browser, on fewer tokens.
The token-model split, labeled as a comparison: ego (lite)'s targeted extraction first, then a Chrome DevTools MCP take_snapshot of the same kind of page. DevTools is standing in for Playwright MCP's snapshot school, not appearing here as a third product to install.
ego (lite), targeted extraction
ego-browser nodejs <<'EOF'
const task = await egoBrowser.newTaskSpace('evidence-egobrowser-hn')
console.log({ taskSpaceId: task.id })
await task.page.goto('https://news.ycombinator.com/', { waitUntil: 'load', timeout: 20000 })
const title = await task.page.title()
const topStory = await task.page.locator('.athing .titleline > a').first().innerText()
const points = await task.page.locator('.subtext .score').first().innerText().catch(() => null)
console.log({ title, url: task.page.url(), topStory, points })
EOF
# real output
{
"taskSpaceId": 13
}
{
"title": "Hacker News",
"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/",
"topStory": "Qwen 3.8 27B",
"points": "412 points"
}Chrome DevTools MCP take_snapshot (same snapshot school as Playwright MCP)
# take_snapshot via chrome-devtools-mcp@latest (mcp Python SDK, stdio session), same page
navigate_page chars: 123
take_snapshot chars: 38285
## Latest page snapshot
uid=1_0 RootWebArea "Hacker News" url="https://news.ycombinator.com/"
uid=1_1 link url="https://news.ycombinator.com/"
uid=1_2 link "Hacker News" url="https://news.ycombinator.com/news"
uid=1_3 StaticText "Hacker News"
uid=1_4 link "new" url="https://news.ycombinator.com/newest"
uid=1_5 StaticText "new"
uid=1_6 StaticText " | "
uid=1_7 link "past" url="https://news.ycombinator.com/front"
uid=1_8 StaticText "past"
uid=1_9 StaticText " | "
uid=1_10 link "comments" url="https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments"
uid=1_11 StaticText "comments"
uid=1_12 StaticText " | "
uid=1_13 link "ask" url="https://news.ycombinator.com/ask"
...90 characters of targeted JSON versus a 38,285-character accessibility-tree dump for the identical page: that's the shape of the difference between the two schools, measured today, not asserted.
What it doesn't replace: Playwright MCP's cross-browser testing matrix and headless CI runs, or the extension's zero-install path for non-technical Claude users. It's the two routes' core benefits combined, built for people who run real tasks on real accounts every day.
Compare ego (lite) with Claude for Chrome dimension by dimension, or download ego (lite) for Mac and try one logged-in task. It's free.
FAQ
Can I use Playwright MCP and Claude for Chrome together?
Yes, and it's a common setup: the extension for tasks inside your accounts, Playwright MCP (or Chrome DevTools MCP for debugging) for testing work. They don't conflict; they just each bill you in their own currency, tokens for one, plan limits and your window for the other.
Does Playwright MCP work with the Chrome extension?
They're separate products that don't talk to each other. Playwright MCP does ship an --extension mode for attaching to an existing browser tab, but that's Playwright's own bridge extension, not Claude for Chrome.
Is Claude for Chrome free?
The extension costs nothing to install, but it's in beta and only works with paid Claude plans, and its browser actions consume your plan's usage. Playwright MCP is free software; its cost arrives as token consumption. ego (lite) is free and works with agents you already pay for.
I searched "claude mcp playwright": which one is that?
That phrase almost always means adding Playwright MCP to Claude Code, which is the one-liner claude mcp add playwright npx @playwright/mcp@latest. It's unrelated to the Claude for Chrome extension; the extension installs from the Chrome Web Store and attaches to Claude Code with claude --chrome instead.
Which is safer for accounts I care about?
Playwright MCP is safest by construction because it never sees your sessions; that's also why it's least useful behind logins. With Claude for Chrome, follow Anthropic's guidance: site-level permissions on, confirmations on, and keep it away from financial actions. With any shared-session approach (ego (lite) included), give the agent scoped tasks rather than blanket freedom.
