TypeScript · MIT · Built on Playwright

The Modern Selenium Alternative.
AI-Powered. Self-Healing.

Selenium served us well — but maintaining XPath selectors through every UI change costs more than the automation saves. Sentinel gives you natural language actions, automatic element discovery, and typed data extraction.

npm install @isoldex/sentinel Read the docs →

Why developers are moving on

💔

Selector rot

XPath and CSS selectors break on every UI update. Teams spend more time fixing tests than writing new ones.

🐢

Slow execution

Selenium's WebDriver protocol adds round-trip latency. Playwright's CDP-based approach is 2–4× faster.

🔧

Setup overhead

WebDriver binaries, Grid configuration, ChromeDriver versions — all managed manually. Playwright handles it automatically.

Side by side

Same task — searching Amazon for a laptop. Compare the code.

Selenium

test.java

// Selenium — verbose, fragile
const driver = await new Builder().forBrowser('chrome').build();
await driver.get('https://amazon.de');

const searchBox = await driver.findElement(By.id('twotabsearchtextbox'));
await searchBox.sendKeys('laptop');

const searchBtn = await driver.findElement(By.id('nav-search-submit-button'));
await searchBtn.click();

// Pray the IDs haven't changed since last week

Sentinel

test.ts

// Sentinel — natural language, self-healing
const sentinel = new Sentinel({ apiKey: process.env.GEMINI_API_KEY });
await sentinel.init();
await sentinel.goto('https://amazon.de');

await sentinel.act('search for laptop');

// That's it. Sentinel found the search box itself.
// If Amazon changes the ID tomorrow, Sentinel adapts.

Selenium — extract data

extract.java

// Selenium — manual DOM traversal
const items = await driver.findElements(By.css('.s-result-item'));
const results = [];
for (const item of items) {
  const title = await item.findElement(By.css('h2 span')).getText();
  const price = await item.findElement(By.css('.a-price-whole')).getText();
  results.push({ title, price });
}

Sentinel — extract data

extract.ts

// Sentinel — structured extraction
const results = await sentinel.extract(
  'Get the first 5 search results with title and price',
  z.object({
    items: z.array(z.object({
      title: z.string(),
      price: z.string(),
    })),
  })
);
// Fully typed, no selector juggling

Selenium vs. Sentinel

A direct feature comparison.

Feature	Selenium	Sentinel
Language	Java / Python / JS / C#	TypeScript (native)
Driver setup	WebDriver + browser binary	Playwright (auto-managed)
Element targeting	XPath / CSS / By.id	Natural language
Self-healing locators	✗	✓
Parallel sessions	Complex (Grid)	yes (Sentinel.parallel())
Data extraction	Manual DOM traversal	extract() — typed schema
Autonomous agent	✗	yes (run() loop)
Shadow DOM	partial	✓
Headless support	✓	✓
OpenTelemetry	✗	✓
MCP / AI assistant	✗	✓
Cost per run	—	~$0.002 (Gemini Flash)
Maintenance burden	High (selector updates)	Low (self-healing)
Open source	✓	yes (MIT)

Migration path

Install Sentinel + Playwright

npm install @isoldex/sentinel playwright && npx playwright install chromium

Get a free Gemini API key

# Visit aistudio.google.com — free tier covers thousands of runs/month
export GEMINI_API_KEY=your_key_here

Replace driver.get() with sentinel.goto()

// Before: await driver.get('https://site.com')
await sentinel.goto('https://site.com');

Replace findElement() with act()

// Before: await driver.findElement(By.id('search')).sendKeys('laptop')
await sentinel.act('search for laptop');

Replace getText() loops with extract()

const data = await sentinel.extract('get search results with title and price', schema);

Leave WebDriver behind

No account needed. MIT license. Your Gemini free tier covers thousands of runs per month.

Get started →See the benchmark →

The Modern Selenium Alternative.AI-Powered. Self-Healing.