Cypress vs Playwright Advent Calendar Day 15

Waiting for a network call to happen

The TodoMVC application makes a GET /todos network call to its backend on page load. Let’s confirm it.

Playwright waiting for a network call

const { test } = require(’@playwright/test’)

test(’GET /todos call’, async ({ page }) => {
  const getTodosPromise = page.waitForResponse(’**/todos’)
  await page.goto(’/’)
  // confirm the network call was made
  await getTodosPromise
})

When the network call happens, Playwright does not show it in the command log, unfortunately, so you have to guess when and if it happened.

The test confirms that the app makes a call to “/todos” endpoint

Cypress waiting for a network call

it(’GET /todos call’, () => {
  cy.intercept(’GET’, ‘/todos’).as(’getTodos’)
  cy.visit(’/’)
  // confirm the network call was made
  cy.wait(’@getTodos’)
})

Cypress Command Log shows the network call with the commands and assertions, and even how many times each call was made

Cypress test confirms the app makes the “GET /todos” call

Since the “wait @getTodos” command is present in the Command Log, you can click on it to see what was sent and received

Click on the “wait <network alias>” to see the request and response

This advent calendar is based on my online course “Cypress vs Playwright“ and open-source workshop bahmutov/cypress-workshop-cy-vs-pw. You can find links to the previous advent calendar days in my blog post “Cypress vs Playwright Advent Calendar 2025“.