Is Cypress the Right Choice for Dispatcher-Level UI Testing in AEM

[georhe6]

Hi Team,

I'm looking for guidance on implementing UI testing specifically for our AEM dispatcher layer and would appreciate your insights.

• Is Cypress the right tool for dispatcher-level testing in AEM, or are there better alternatives specifically designed for this use case?
• What are the pros/cons of using Cypress vs other testing frameworks (like Selenium, Playwright, or AEM-specific tools) for dispatcher testing?
  
  Thanks,
  Geo

[konstantyn_diachenko · Accepted solution]

Hi @georhe6 ,

Both Cypress and Playwright are excellent for end-to-end (E2E) testing of the AEM dispatcher layer, especially for AEMaaCS, but I would rather use Cypress.

Pros:

• Easy setup & fast execution
• Works well in CI/CD pipelines
• Can test:
  • Cache behavior (X-Cache headers)
  • Redirects and rewrites
  • Vanity URLs
  • Security headers
  • robots.txt/sitemap.xml
• Great dev experience with visual test runner

Cons:

• Limited to Chromium and Firefox
• Doesn’t support multiple tabs
• Cross-origin testing can be tricky (fixable via config)

Tool	Best For	AEM Dispatcher Fit	Notes
Cypress	UI testing, cache/redirect checks	Great	Fast, easy, limited browser support
Playwright	Cross-browser, multi-tab, flexible	Excellent	Better for Safari or edge cases
Selenium	Complex flows, legacy systems	Overkill	Slower and brittle

Scenarios you can test with Cypress:

• Any kind of UI tests like components configurations, look and feel

• Caching (hit/miss)

• Redirects and 404s

• Response headers (CSP, HSTS)

• Error pages and security filters

• Robots.txt/sitemap.xml

Conclusion

• Use Cypress for most dispatcher-level UI testing in AEMaaCS.

• Use Playwright if you need Safari, multi-tabs, or advanced flows.

• Avoid Selenium and AEM UI Framework for dispatcher tests.