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MF** MFTF!

While we're fixing Magento... why not fix the tests too?

The Elephant in the Room

If you've ever waited 45 minutes for an MFTF suite to crawl through Selenium WebDriver, you know the pain. MFTF (Magento Functional Testing Framework) was ambitious when it launched. But in 2026, it's:

  • Slow — Selenium-based, single-threaded, waiting for every page load
  • Flaky — random timeouts, stale element references, session crashes
  • Heavy — requires Java, Selenium Server, ChromeDriver, Allure reports
  • Painful to write — XML-based test definitions, action groups, sections, data entities — all to click a button
  • Maintenance burden — thousands of XML files across modules that break on every UI change

Meanwhile, the rest of the testing world moved on.

💡 The Idea: Replace MFTF with Playwright

What if we replaced MFTF entirely with Playwright?

Modern, fast, reliable end-to-end testing that developers actually enjoy writing.

MFTF Playwright
Language XML action groups JavaScript/TypeScript (or PHP)
Speed Minutes per test Seconds per test
Parallelism Barely Native, out of the box
Browser engines Selenium + ChromeDriver Chromium, Firefox, WebKit — built in
Dependencies Java, Selenium Server, Allure npm install
Debugging Good luck Trace viewer, video recording, screenshots
Auto-waiting Manual wait hacks Built-in smart waiting
CI/CD Heavy Docker images Lightweight, fast startup
Developer experience XML hell Actual code you can read

Standing on Giants: elgentos/magento2-playwright

The brilliant team at elgentos already started this work. Their magento2-playwright project provides a Playwright testing framework specifically designed for Magento 2.

elgentos/magento2-playwright

What They've Built

  • Playwright test framework tailored for Magento 2 stores
  • Page object models for common Magento pages
  • Fixture support for test data
  • CI/CD integration examples
  • A real, working alternative to MFTF

The elgentos Team

How This Fits Into GMAD

As we decouple modules and make them optional, we need tests that verify:

  1. Module X can be disabled without breaking anything
  2. Module X works correctly when enabled
  3. Other modules still work regardless of Module X's state

MFTF tests are tightly coupled to specific UI elements and page structures — exactly the kind of coupling we're trying to eliminate. Playwright tests can be written to test behavior, not UI implementation details.

The GMAD testing vision

Every decoupled module gets a Playwright test suite that verifies:

  • ✅ Module disabled → bin/magento setup:di:compile passes
  • ✅ Module disabled → storefront works without it
  • ✅ Module enabled → feature works correctly
  • ✅ No regressions in core functionality

Want to Help?

This is a natural extension of the GMAD project. If you're passionate about testing and tired of MFTF:

  1. Check out elgentos/magento2-playwright
  2. Help us define the test strategy for decoupled modules
  3. Open an issue with your ideas

Let's not just decouple Magento's modules — let's decouple it from bad testing tools too.