I've set up some Playwright flows for logging into platforms like Salesforce, Hubspot, Zendesk, and Siebel, and while the demo was perfect, everything falls apart in production when dealing with 15 different vendor portals. I'm running into constant issues: CSS selectors break whenever there's a UI update from vendors, sessions time out after 15 minutes, and Cloudflare blocks our requests frequently, even when using stealth plugins. Headless browsers are triggering captchas due to outdated system formats.
I've tried using browserless and browserbase, which work initially, but eventually get blocked. Retrying requests is making everything unbearably slow, and my developers end up spending entire sprints fixing broken locators instead of making progress on new features.
I need a reliable production solution that:
* Can bypass Cloudflare,
* Can manage session timeouts effectively,
* Works with older enterprise UIs from around 2005, preferably compatible with Playwright.
Are RPA tools the answer, or is there something else out there that truly works?
5 Answers
Just curious, but what exactly are you building? It sounds a bit like a web scraper or perhaps something more risky like a spam bot. Just checking!
Sounds like you're experiencing the typical struggles with browser automation in production. Playwright certainly looks great in demos, but once you scale up and deal with real vendor portals, things get hairy, especially with session management and changing DOM structures. I recommend adopting a hybrid approach: leveraging browser automation when necessary but relying on API calls for parts where you can avoid full automation. Also, consider implementing a fallback for CAPTCHA solutions; ignoring them as an issue can cause major disruptions. Lastly, understanding your request volume and adjusting your strategy accordingly can make a huge difference in stability.
Make sure your data pulls aren't taking 15 minutes! If they do, that could be part of the security measures causing session timeouts. Testing your application under realistic loads is crucial, as many issues will only show up under stress. The challenges you face with repeated requests and degrading performance are typical, unfortunately.
Dealing with Cloudflare can definitely be a nightmare. One strategy we found helpful is session pooling—keeping pre-warmed browsers alive longer can significantly reduce captcha challenges. If you hit a Wall with Playwright and Cloudflare, try using a fallback plan with different proxies or browser setups to avoid getting hit with blocks. For the legacy UIs, sometimes using XPath combined with text matching can yield better results than CSS selectors. It can be a tricky balance—mixing browser automation with API requests as needed seems to work best.
Using APIs instead of browser automation could save you a lot of headaches. If the platforms provide APIs, definitely consider that route; it avoids a lot of risks like account bans due to constantly by-passing their systems. Just a thought!
Totally agree! Treating CAPTCHAs and session recovery as important infrastructure, rather than just edge cases, really helps in achieving better stability in production.