kinora vs Playwright HTML report
Playwright's HTML report shows you one run on one machine. kinora shows you every run: history, trends, and flaky tests across projects, with the same trace viewer embedded inline.
The HTML report is excellent for the run in front of you. It does not persist across runs, merge shards and projects into one view, or tell you a test has been flaky for three weeks. kinora sits one level up and keeps that history, while embedding the very same trace viewer so you never lose the debugging experience.
kinora
kinora is an open-source dashboard that ingests every Playwright run from CI and tracks pass rates, trends, and flaky tests across projects and over time, with the full Playwright trace viewer embedded inline.
Playwright HTML report
Playwright's HTML report is the built-in reporter that renders a single test run as a static HTML page, with the trace viewer reachable from each failed test.
Feature by feature
| Feature | kinora | Playwright HTML report |
|---|---|---|
| Single-run report | ||
| Embedded Playwright trace viewer | ||
| History across runs | ||
| Pass-rate trends over time | ||
| Flaky detection | Across run history | Per-run retries only |
| Screenshot comparison (expected / actual / diff) | Per run and across history | Per run |
| Health per component and story (Storybook, component tests) | ||
| Multiple repos/suites over time | ||
| Runs from all CI shards merged | Automatic on ingest | Via blob + merge-reports |
| Alerts on new failures / regressions | Slack, email, webhook | |
| PR comment on CI runs (GitHub, GitLab) | ||
| MCP server for coding agents | ||
| Setup | Reporter or CLI | Built in |
| Cost | Free self-host / free cloud tier | Free (built in) |
| Hosting | Self-host or cloud | Local static files |
Which should you pick?
Choose kinora when
- You run tests in CI regularly and want history, trends, and flaky tracking across runs and projects.
- You want alerts on new failures or regressions.
- You want a shareable dashboard without giving up the Playwright trace viewer.
- Your coding agent (Claude Code, Cursor, any MCP client) pulls failing tests, traces, and flaky history from CI over MCP.
Stick with the HTML report when
- You only need the latest run on your own machine.
- You don't need history, trends, or a server.
- You want the absolute simplest setup, with nothing to host.
FAQ
Does kinora replace Playwright's HTML report?
No, it complements it. kinora ingests the same run data and embeds the same Playwright trace viewer, then adds cross-run history, trends, and flaky detection that a single-run HTML report can't provide.
Can Playwright's HTML report show history across runs?
Not on its own. Each report represents one run on one machine. kinora keeps every run so you can compare them and track pass-rate trends over time.
Do I still get the trace viewer with kinora?
Yes. The full Playwright trace viewer is embedded in the dashboard and opens inline on any failure, so debugging is exactly what you're used to.
Push your first run.
Add the reporter, point it at a kinora server, and watch the history build itself.