Cypress.io is Dying

The fate of Cypress, of course, follows.

Image credit: https://clipart-library.com/clipart/482418.htm

A repost of my past article on Medium in 2023.
(624 claps from 147 readers)

Cypress testers, don’t rush to argue or debate with me. I didn’t start the “Cypress.io is about to die” statement, see below. This article is a compilation of facts (Cypress’s financial numbers & own announcements and opinions from others, including your well-known Cypress authority) and common-sense business reasoning. For die-hard Cypress fans, what you use Cypress is just for a job, Cypress.io does not care about you, it even cut a number of its own staff earlier this year. Knowing the facts, even if you may treat them as rumours, is good, for yourself.

I read a Reddit post, “Cypress.io is about to die, you should migrate your projects” by throw_away_and_away- three months ago. Recently, Gleb, a former distinguished engineer of Cypress.io, responded to this post.

Gleb Bahmutov’s response to the post in 2023–07

It seems Cypress.io (the company behind Cypress) is in serious trouble. Many Cypress testers knew but tended to ignore the fact that Cypress is a commercial product from a commercial company. The model is fine, I do not object to that for tools, but for framework, I much prefer the free, Standard-based and open-source model of Selenium WebDriver. Anyway, the common sense is if a software company dies, often its product goes with it.

Recently, a mentee talked about Cypress as a potential candidate for a project, which reminded me of that post. In this article, I will share some facts and common-sense opinions based on that, which might help Cypress testers decide the next move.

Table of Contents:
∘ Fact 1. Playwright is taking over Cypress
∘ Fact 2. Cypress.io Miserable Financial Numbers
∘ Fact 3. Cypress.io downsizing in January 2023
∘ Fact 4. There is a “parasite company” for Cypress’ monetization service
∘ Fact 5. More competitors in the field of faking test automation
∘ Rumours

Fact 1. Playwright is taking over Cypress

Many Cypress testers have already taken action: “Migrate to Playwright from Cypress”.

Below are Google results (just done on my machine) for “playwright cypress migrate” and “cypress playwright migrate”.

Note: I don’t use Cypress or Playwright, there was no cookie-based algorithm bias for this search.

Some might say the verdict (people dump Cypress for Playwright) is not shown in the summary. Oh well, here is one of them.

“The migration to Playwright is now done at 21RISK and we experience a test suite we find easier to maintain, faster to execute, less flaky, and cheaper to operate.”

Although the Google results indicate a trend, and there are rumours circulating as well, we cannot ascertain the accuracy of the prediction. Nevertheless, examining the financial figures of Cypress.io could offer valuable insights.

Fact 2. Cypress.io Miserable Financial Numbers

According to Gerlatka (“a leading source of private SaaS company data”), Cypress.io was founded in 2015 and raised funding below. (The data aligns with that Reddit post and Cypress press info).