Compare / browsers

Chrome vs Chromium

Google's Chrome against the Chromium build Playwright ships: seven majors apart, one brand missing from the client hints, one TLS extension fewer — and, contrary to folklore, the same video codecs and DRM.

Google Chrome Chromium

Chromium on the fleet is the build Playwright downloads for itself — the one most automation runs on by default. Chrome is Google's own release, the browser most of the web's visitors actually use. They share an engine, so the question isn't "which renders better" but "which one does the site think it's talking to", and what each costs you as a developer.

As a developer: driving them

	Google Chrome	Chromium
Version on the fleet	155 stable, with `beta` (156) and `dev` (157) channels and pinned previous majors (154, 153).	148 — the build tied to the Playwright release the fleet runs. One version, no channels, no pinning.
Playwright client, options	`chromium` 1.60; `channel`, `version`, `cdp`, `live_view`.	`chromium` 1.60; `cdp`, `live_view`.
Features	Every Playwright feature (PDF, tracing, device emulation, routing) — measured identical.	The same — measured identical.
Video and DRM	H.264, AAC, VP9, AV1 and Widevine (measured).	The same — H.264, AAC, VP9, AV1 and Widevine all reported available (measured), so streaming-site playback isn't a reason to switch on the fleet.
Web platform	Current: everything up to 155.	Seven majors behind: no `Iterator.prototype.includes`, `FontFace.width`, `margin-trim`, `symbols()`, `<camera>`…; still has APIs Chrome has since removed (`document.requestStorageAccessFor`, Shared Storage). Code that works in Chromium 148 can break in today's Chrome, and vice versa.

As a scraper: what the site sees

	Google Chrome	Chromium
Client hints	Brands `Google Chrome 155`, `Chromium 155` (+ GREASE).	No `Google Chrome` brand — only `Chromium 148` (+ GREASE). The single easiest server-side way to tell "real Chrome" from an automation browser.
User agent	`Chrome/155.0.0.0`	`Chrome/148.0.0.0` — a version real Chrome users left months ago.
TLS	JA4 `t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_…` — 19 extensions.	JA4 `t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_…` — 18 extensions; same cipher suites, different full fingerprint.
HTTP/2 and headers	Chromium's SETTINGS, WINDOW_UPDATE and header order.	Identical (measured).
Languages	`navigator.languages`: `en-US, en`	`en-US` only — the shorter list is another small Playwright-default tell.
Fingerprint surface	Same canvas hash, WebGL (SwiftShader on the fleet), screen, plugins; `webdriver` false.	Identical on all of those (measured).

Which to pick

Chrome whenever the site scores visitors: the Google Chrome brand, a current version and the TLS fingerprint real users send. It also lets you test against beta and dev before they ship, or pin an older major to reproduce a bug.
Chromium for workloads where nobody checks — internal tools, your own sites, rendering and PDF jobs — and when you want the exact browser your local Playwright tests run against.
Patching Chromium to look like Chrome means overriding the brand list and version (possible over CDP, but every override is one more thing that must agree) — and the TLS extension and the 148 feature set can't be changed at all. Launch Chrome instead; it costs the same thread.

Measured on the fleet (2026-10-07)

One headful launch of each through the same proxy, probed from inside a page and via tls.peet.ws; codec and Widevine support checked with canPlayType and requestMediaKeySystemAccess on the same day.

Launch and cost

Single run; timings depend on the proxy and on fleet load.

	Google Chrome	Chromium
Launch body	{"headless":false}	{"headless":false}
Threads used	2 (linux_headful)	2 (linux_headful)
Browser version	155.0.8059.39	148.0.7778.96
Launch request → browser ready	0.8 s	0.6 s
Playwright connect	1.0 s	0.2 s
Load example.com	20.3 s	1.6 s
Load tls.peet.ws/api/all	5.6 s	3.7 s

What the network sees

From tls.peet.ws/api/all, requested by the browser itself. JA3 hashes change between runs of the same build (GREASE), so compare JA4 and the HTTP/2 fingerprint.

	Google Chrome	Chromium
HTTP version	h2	h2
JA4	t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99	t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_d8a2da3f94cd
Peetprint hash	fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee	1d4ffe9b0e34acac0bd883fa7f79d7b5
Akamai HTTP/2 fingerprint	1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144\|15663105\|0\|m,a,s,p	1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144\|15663105\|0\|m,a,s,p
Cipher suites / extensions	16 / 19	16 / 18
Header order (first 12)	method, authority, scheme, path, sec-ch-ua, sec-ch-ua-mobile, sec-ch-ua-platform, upgrade-insecure-requests, user-agent, accept, sec-fetch-site, sec-fetch-mode	method, authority, scheme, path, sec-ch-ua, sec-ch-ua-mobile, sec-ch-ua-platform, upgrade-insecure-requests, user-agent, accept, sec-fetch-site, sec-fetch-mode

What page scripts see

Read with page.evaluate on example.com. Cores and memory are the server's and vary between fleet nodes.

	Google Chrome	Chromium
navigator.userAgent	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/148.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
UA-CH brands	Google Chrome 155 · Chromium 155 · Not(A:Brand 24	Not/A)Brand 99 · Chromium 148
UA-CH full version list	Google Chrome 155.0.8059.39 · Chromium 155.0.8059.39 · Not(A:Brand 24.0.0.0	Not/A)Brand 99.0.0.0 · Chromium 148.0.7778.96
navigator.platform / vendor	Linux x86_64 / Google Inc.	Linux x86_64 / Google Inc.
Languages	en-US, en	en-US
Timezone / locale	UTC / en-US	UTC / en-US
Screen (w×h×availW×availH×depth)	1280x720x1280x720x24	1280x720x1280x720x24
Window outer / inner / DPR	1288x805 / 1280x720 / 1	1288x805 / 1280x720 / 1
hardwareConcurrency / deviceMemory	24 / 32	24 / 32
WebGL vendor	Google Inc. (Google)	Google Inc. (Google)
WebGL renderer	ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)	ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)
WebGL version	WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)	WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)
WebGPU (navigator.gpu)	yes	yes
Canvas hash	f5a94624	f5a94624
navigator.webdriver	no	no
window.chrome / navigator.connection	yes / yes	yes / yes
Plugins / PDF viewer	5 / yes	5 / yes
Notification.permission / permissions.query	default / prompt	default / prompt

Web platform features

Presence probes; a user agent that claims one version while exposing another's features is a detectable inconsistency.

	Google Chrome	Chromium
`Iterator.prototype.includes` (new in Chrome 154)	yes	no
`FontFace.width` (new in Chrome 154)	yes	no
CSS `text-decoration-inset` (new in Chrome 154)	no	no
`Iterator.prototype.join` (Chrome 153)	yes	no
`Iterator.zip` (Chrome 153)	yes	no
CSS `scroll-axis-lock` (Chrome 153)	no	no
`<camera>` element (Chrome 153)	yes	no
`document.requestStorageAccessFor` (deprecated in 153)	no	yes
Topics API (`document.browsingTopics`)	yes	yes
Protected Audience (`navigator.joinAdInterestGroup`)	yes	yes
Shared Storage (`window.sharedStorage`)	no	yes
Attribution Reporting (`window.attributionReporting`)	no	no
Private Aggregation	no	no
WebHID (`navigator.hid`)	yes	yes
CSS `margin-trim` (Chrome 155)	yes	no
CSS `text-decoration-skip-spaces` (Chrome 155)	no	no
CSS `corner` shorthand (Chrome 155)	no	no
CSS `symbols()` (Chrome 155)	yes	no
`Element.streamAppendHTML` (Chrome 155)	no	no
`WebTransport.reliability` (Chrome 155)	no	no
`window.maximize()` — Additional Windowing Controls (Chrome 155)	no	no
Canvas `srgb-linear` colour space (Chrome 155)	no	no
Permission policy `media-playback-while-not-visible` (Chrome 155)	yes	no
CSS `random()` (Chrome 156)	no	no
CSS `scroll-snap-type: pair` (Chrome 156)	no	no
Fenced frames (`window.fence`) — removal starts in 157	yes	yes
`rel=compression-dictionary` (Chrome 156 updates)	yes	yes

bot.sannysoft.com

The classic headless-detection test page; what it marks red.

	Google Chrome	Chromium
Checks / failed	57 / 1	57 / 1
Failed checks	WebGL Renderer	WebGL Renderer

A plain-HTTP URL (http://ip-api.com/json)

Chrome 154 warns before loading insecure HTTP by default — does that reach an automated session?

	Google Chrome	Chromium
Final URL	http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status	http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status
HTTP status	200	200
Content loaded / warning page first	yes / no	yes / no

Playwright over the remote connection

Which client features work on this side.

	Google Chrome	Chromium
page.evaluate runs in the page's own world	yes	yes
addInitScript visible to page scripts	yes	yes
Console events	yes	yes
Request interception (page.route)	yes	yes
Screenshot	yes	yes
PDF	yes	yes
Mobile device emulation	yes	yes
Tracing	yes	yes

Rows where the two sides differ are highlighted. IP addresses are replaced with placeholders (203.0.113.x). The probe is compare/probe.mjs in our repository; the raw result is below.

Raw output

{
  "ran_at": "2026-10-07T07:44:13.028Z",
  "sides": [
    {
      "label": "Google Chrome",
      "engine": "chrome",
      "body": {
        "headless": false
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "chrome",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 849,
        "connect_ms": 995,
        "example_ms": 20284,
        "peet_ms": 5620
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99",
        "ja3_hash": "2aad4b2f7c2d32c0a2e0c063c6d24066",
        "peetprint_hash": "fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 19,
        "akamai_h2": "1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p",
        "akamai_h2_hash": "52d84b11737d980aef856699f885ca86",
        "header_order": [
          "method",
          "authority",
          "scheme",
          "path",
          "sec-ch-ua",
          "sec-ch-ua-mobile",
          "sec-ch-ua-platform",
          "upgrade-insecure-requests",
          "user-agent",
          "accept",
          "sec-fetch-site",
          "sec-fetch-mode"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US",
          "en"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 24,
        "device_memory": 32,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 5,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Google Chrome",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Google Chrome",
              "version": "155.0.8059.39"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155.0.8059.39"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24.0.0.0"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "155.0.8059.39",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1280x720x1280x720x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1288x805",
          "inner": "1280x720",
          "dpr": 1
        },
        "timezone": "UTC",
        "locale": "en-US",
        "webgl": {
          "vendor": "Google Inc. (Google)",
          "renderer": "ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)",
          "version": "WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)"
        },
        "canvas_hash": "f5a94624",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": true,
        "stack_read_by_debugger": false,
        "features": {
          "iterator_includes": true,
          "iterator_join": true,
          "iterator_zip": true,
          "fontface_width": true,
          "css_text_decoration_inset": false,
          "css_scroll_axis_lock": false,
          "websocket_options_bag": null,
          "camera_element": true,
          "topics_api": true,
          "protected_audience": true,
          "shared_storage": false,
          "attribution_reporting": false,
          "request_storage_access_for": false,
          "webhid": true,
          "private_aggregation": false,
          "css_margin_trim": true,
          "css_text_decoration_skip_spaces": false,
          "css_corner_shorthand": false,
          "css_symbols": true,
          "stream_append_html": false,
          "webtransport_reliability": false,
          "window_maximize": false,
          "canvas_srgb_linear": false,
          "policy_media_playback_while_not_visible": true,
          "css_random": false,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": false,
          "fenced_frames": true,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 30
      },
      "plain_http": {
        "final_url": "http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status",
        "status": 200,
        "title": "",
        "loaded": true,
        "warning_page": false,
        "page_text": "{\"status\":\"success\"}"
      },
      "playwright": {
        "evaluate_in_main_world": true,
        "console_events": true,
        "init_script": true,
        "route": true,
        "screenshot": true,
        "pdf": true,
        "mobile_emulation": true,
        "tracing": true
      },
      "browser_version": "155.0.8059.39"
    },
    {
      "label": "Chromium",
      "engine": "chromium",
      "body": {
        "headless": false
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "chromium",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 580,
        "connect_ms": 163,
        "example_ms": 1647,
        "peet_ms": 3670
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_d8a2da3f94cd",
        "ja3_hash": "61c36b4bf24ddf43b4290e86253ec074",
        "peetprint_hash": "1d4ffe9b0e34acac0bd883fa7f79d7b5",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 18,
        "akamai_h2": "1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p",
        "akamai_h2_hash": "52d84b11737d980aef856699f885ca86",
        "header_order": [
          "method",
          "authority",
          "scheme",
          "path",
          "sec-ch-ua",
          "sec-ch-ua-mobile",
          "sec-ch-ua-platform",
          "upgrade-insecure-requests",
          "user-agent",
          "accept",
          "sec-fetch-site",
          "sec-fetch-mode"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/148.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 24,
        "device_memory": 32,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 5,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Not/A)Brand",
              "version": "99"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "148"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Not/A)Brand",
              "version": "99.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "148.0.7778.96"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "148.0.7778.96",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1280x720x1280x720x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1288x805",
          "inner": "1280x720",
          "dpr": 1
        },
        "timezone": "UTC",
        "locale": "en-US",
        "webgl": {
          "vendor": "Google Inc. (Google)",
          "renderer": "ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)",
          "version": "WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)"
        },
        "canvas_hash": "f5a94624",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": true,
        "stack_read_by_debugger": false,
        "features": {
          "iterator_includes": false,
          "iterator_join": false,
          "iterator_zip": false,
          "fontface_width": false,
          "css_text_decoration_inset": false,
          "css_scroll_axis_lock": false,
          "websocket_options_bag": null,
          "camera_element": false,
          "topics_api": true,
          "protected_audience": true,
          "shared_storage": true,
          "attribution_reporting": false,
          "request_storage_access_for": true,
          "webhid": true,
          "private_aggregation": false,
          "css_margin_trim": false,
          "css_text_decoration_skip_spaces": false,
          "css_corner_shorthand": false,
          "css_symbols": false,
          "stream_append_html": false,
          "webtransport_reliability": false,
          "window_maximize": false,
          "canvas_srgb_linear": false,
          "policy_media_playback_while_not_visible": false,
          "css_random": false,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": false,
          "fenced_frames": true,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 30
      },
      "plain_http": {
        "final_url": "http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status",
        "status": 200,
        "title": "",
        "loaded": true,
        "warning_page": false,
        "page_text": "{\"status\":\"success\"}"
      },
      "playwright": {
        "evaluate_in_main_world": true,
        "console_events": true,
        "init_script": true,
        "route": true,
        "screenshot": true,
        "pdf": true,
        "mobile_emulation": true,
        "tracing": true
      },
      "browser_version": "148.0.7778.96"
    }
  ]
}

Bottom line

Chrome and the Playwright Chromium build are the same engine at different ages wearing different badges. The badges — client-hint brand, version, one TLS extension — are exactly what server-side bot checks read first.

On the fleet both play video and DRM content, so the deciding question is simply whether the site cares which badge it sees. If it might, run Chrome.