---
id: intro
title: "Getting started"
---

<!-- TOC -->
- [Release notes](./release-notes.md)

## Installation

Playwright is distributed as a set of [Maven](https://maven.apache.org/what-is-maven.html) modules. The easiest way to use it is to add one dependency to your project's `pom.xml` as described below. If you're not familiar with Maven please refer to its [documentation](https://maven.apache.org/guides/getting-started/maven-in-five-minutes.html).

## Usage

<Tabs
  defaultValue="java"
  values={[
    {label: 'Example.java', value: 'java'},
    {label: 'pom.xml', value: 'pom'}
  ]
}>
<TabItem value="java">

```java
package org.example;

import com.microsoft.playwright.*;

public class Example {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    try (Playwright playwright = Playwright.create()) {
      Browser browser = playwright.chromium().launch();
      Page page = browser.newPage();
      page.navigate("http://playwright.dev");
      System.out.println(page.title());
    }
  }
}
```

</TabItem>
<TabItem value="pom">

```xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

  <groupId>org.example</groupId>
  <artifactId>examples</artifactId>
  <version>0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <name>Playwright Client Examples</name>
  <properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
  </properties>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.microsoft.playwright</groupId>
      <artifactId>playwright</artifactId>
      <version>1.27.0</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.1</version>
        <configuration>
          <source>1.8</source>
          <target>1.8</target>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>
```

</TabItem>
</Tabs>

With the Example.java and pom.xml above, compile and execute your new program as follows:

```bash
mvn compile exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="org.example.Example"
```

Running it downloads the Playwright package and installs browser binaries for Chromium, Firefox and WebKit. To modify this behavior see [installation parameters](./browsers.md#installing-browsers).

## First script

In our first script, we will navigate to `whatsmyuseragent.org` and take a screenshot in WebKit.

```java
import com.microsoft.playwright.*;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class WebKitScreenshot {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    try (Playwright playwright = Playwright.create()) {
      Browser browser = playwright.webkit().launch();
      Page page = browser.newPage();
      page.navigate("http://whatsmyuseragent.org/");
      page.screenshot(new Page.ScreenshotOptions().setPath(Paths.get("example.png")));
    }
  }
}
```

By default, Playwright runs the browsers in headless mode. To see the browser UI, pass the `headless=false` flag while launching the browser. You can also use [`option: slowMo`] to slow down execution. Learn more in the debugging tools [section](./debug.md).

```java
playwright.firefox().launch(new BrowserType.LaunchOptions().setHeadless(false).setSlowMo(50));
```

## Record scripts

[Command line tools](./cli.md) can be used to record user interactions and generate Java code.

```bash
mvn exec:java -e -Dexec.mainClass=com.microsoft.playwright.CLI -Dexec.args="codegen wikipedia.org"
```

## System requirements

Playwright requires **Java 8** or newer. The browser binaries for Chromium,
Firefox and WebKit work across the 3 platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux):

### Windows

Works with Windows and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

### macOS

Requires 11 (Big Sur) or above.

### Linux

Depending on your Linux distribution, you might need to install additional
dependencies to run the browsers.

:::note
Only Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04, and 22.04 are officially supported.
:::

See also in the [Command line tools](./cli.md#install-system-dependencies)
which has a command to install all necessary dependencies automatically for Ubuntu
LTS releases.
