With Momentic , you can run headless browser testing on your own machines, on your CI runner, or on Momentic’s own infrastructure. So, managed vs self-hosted browser infrastructure (or a bit of both): the choice is yours.
If you’re stuck on which option would work best for you, this guide will help you understand what headless browser testing is and whether local or hosted execution would suit your team best.
Summary: Local vs Hosted Headless Browser Testing
TL;DR: Hosted headless testing alleviates the maintenance burden on your team and allows you to focus resources elsewhere. Local testing gives you more control, but you’ll have to manage the infrastructure yourself. A hybrid approach can offer the best of both worlds, so long as you have the capacity to deal with management and decision-making that comes with it.
| Execution model | Definition | Pros | Cons | Best For | Tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosted | Browsers run on infrastructure managed by the testing provider. | Low infrastructure overhead, easy to scale and parallelize, consistent environments, centralized test artifacts | Private network access, less infrastructure control, provider-dependent security, usage-based costs | High-growth teams prioritizing scale and simplicity | Momentic, Sauce Labs. |
| Local | Browsers run on your own machines or CI infrastructure. | Strong private-network access, control over environment and data, lower infrastructure costs | Infrastructure maintenance, more resources required to scale, greater operational overhead | Enterprises with high customization and compliance needs | Momentic, Playwright |
| Hybrid | Browsers can run locally/CI or on vendor infrastructure. | Control and scalability, flexible execution | Complex to manage, requires decisions about where tests run, potential environment differences | Organizations wanting both control and scalability | Momentic |
What is Headless Browser Testing?
Headless browser testing allows you to test websites and web apps using a browser, without displaying the browser’s GUI.
The actual process itself doesn’t change at all from regular browser testing . So, if you’re testing a login flow for a website, the test still follows the same basic steps, headless or not:
- Open Chrome
- Navigate to a website
- Click Login
- Enter valid login credentials
- Check that the action completes and the home screen displays correctly
It’s just that headless browser testing uses headless browsers that work in the background, without displaying anything visually. Instead, a testing tool controls the browser programmatically.
What Are The Advantages of Headless Browser Testing?
In short: it’s fast, scalable, works well in CI/CD, and can test real browser behavior:
- Because you don’t need to render a visible browser window, tests execute faster.
- It’s easy to integrate with CI/CD workflows , which can run thousands of tests automatically.
- You can run lots of browser instances simultaneously, so it’s easy to scale.
- Headless browsers can execute JavaScript and interact with pages, so you can test real browser behavior.
A common workflow is to develop and debug using headed testing so that actions and their effects are visible, then run your automated test suite headlessly in CI.
Managed vs Self-Hosted Browsers For Headless Testing: Which Works Best?
You have a choice as to where you run your headless tests. You can run them on your machines (‘locally’) or on infrastructure provided by your testing software vendor (‘hosted’).
Local Execution: Pros and Cons
To run tests locally, you need to install and run the browser on your own machines. Momentic, for example, supports running its tests locally, including against localhost, private VPC applications, and VPN-accessible systems.
The Pros of Local Execution
- Seamless access to private environments: If an app is only accessible on private networks (for example, when you’re connected to your company’s VPN), a browser running on your company’s CI runner can access it directly.
- Access to internal resources: Tests’ communication with local databases, servers, and VPNs is simpler to set up (though it will depend on your network/security configuration
- More control over setup: You have complete control over browser version, network, dependencies, variables, and other aspects of setup, so you can test in the precise way you want. This can be important when testing specialist scenarios.
- Potentially lower cost: If your organization already has CI infrastructure, running another process on it may be cheaper compared to vendor costs for hosted headless browser testing.
The Cons of Local Execution
The main drawback of local execution is that it’s entirely on you to deal with the infrastructure. Your CI machine needs to have the right browser and dependencies, and depending on what and how you’re testing, you may also need to configure:
- Nodes
- Fonts
- OS updates
- Certificates
- Proxy configuration
- Test dependencies
- Parallel browser processes
The cost and ease of scaling your test suite should be another consideration. It’s not impossible to do, but if you want to run lots of tests simultaneously, it’s your responsibility to manage the hardware and memory requirements that support this.
All of this will add expense (in both engineering hours and hard cash) to your testing strategy, and take resources away from other important engineering tasks.
Hosted Execution: Pros and Cons
With hosted execution, the testing provider supplies the machines and browsers. Momentic allows you to run headless browser tests on its own infrastructure, as well as your own machines.
The Pros of Hosted Execution
- Less infrastructure management: Your provider maintains the machines, not you. As your test suite grows and maintenance hours grow with it, this is a useful timesaver and allows you to spend engineering resources elsewhere.
- Parallelization is easier: Generally, hosted solutions make it easier to scale parallel testing by providing specialist features and taking responsibility for underlying capacity considerations.
- Execution is more consistent: With hosted headless testing, all tests run on the same controlled browser environment. You won’t get the issue of a test passing on one machine and failing on another.
- Test artifacts can be more extensive: Centralized assets such as screenshots, videos, logs, traces, and failure reporting are more readily available and accessible from hosted solutions.
The Cons of Hosted Execution
- Private network access is difficult to configure: If you need access to private networks, you’ll need to set up some sort of mechanism to allow the hosted browser to reach it securely. This is often the deciding factor between hosted and local execution.
- Less control over machines: This is simpler than configuring them yourself, but limits you if you have strong requirements for unusual custom configurations.
- Data/security are out of your hands: Data transfer, storage, and compliance are the responsibility of your hosting provider. This unknown may be a sticking point for organizations with high compliance needs.
- Costs can scale with usage: You’ll save the hours spent maintaining the infrastructure yourself, but hosting payments increase as testing needs get heavier. It may be cheaper to run your own CI infrastructure.
Managed vs Self-Hosted Browsers: Which Is Right For My Team?
The decision boils down to this: do you want to prioritize growth and scalability, or precise control over testing environment and data storage?
Smaller teams with a high growth focus and rapid release cycles may find hosted solutions more aligned to their needs. Enterprise teams with stricter compliance needs are often attracted by the control and data oversight offered by locally hosted headless browser testing.
Why Not Both?
Many organizations split headless browser testing strategically between local and hosted environments. Internal software and regression suites can be tested locally, while public-facing apps with large-scale regression suites can be tested in the cloud. This balances control over data and internal processes with the need to test at scale.
Headless Browser Testing Tools For Hybrid, Local, and Hosted Execution
For Both Local and Hosted Testing
Momentic
Momentic is an agentic software testing tool that supports multiple execution models. Headless browsers can be run locally, on your CI runner, or hosted on Momentic’s infrastructure. The platform offers strong reporting features and parallel execution options.
Other options include Autify and TestOwl.
For Local Testing
Playwright
Playwright is a traditional automation framework that allows you to run tests on your own machine or CI runner, with support for Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit browsers. Integrating Claude Code or Cursor can help accelerate workflows.
Other options include Selenium and Cypress.
For Hosted Testing
Sauce Labs
Sauce Labs offers traditional cloud-hosted test execution with an extended device farm. This saves teams the effort of maintaining their own machines and makes it easier to test across different OS/browser combinations.
Other options include Rainforest QA and Sauce Labs.
Run Headless Browsers Wherever You Want With Momentic
“We couldn’t reasonably scale with manual testing, and heavy scripted automation doesn’t solve the real problem – it just shifts the burden. Momentic was the only solution that helped us eliminate that burden.”
Coframe struggled with testing bottlenecks until they found Momentic. Now, they generate end-to-end tests 70% faster, catching 80% of critical UI issues before production.
Momentic’s approach allows you to test on local machines, in your CI runner, or on Momentic’s cloud-hosted infrastructure. It’s fast, adaptable, and (importantly) incredibly easy to pick up from day one.