Puppeteer & Playwright Proxies (Node.js) — Reliable Setup

Overview

Playwright and Puppeteer support proxies cleanly. This guide shows proxy configuration and authentication patterns that work in production.

Installation & Setup

Install Playwright:

npm i playwright

Examples

import { chromium } from "playwright";

const browser = await chromium.launch({
  proxy: { server: "http://HOST:PORT", username: "USER", password: "PASS" },
});

const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto("https://api.ipify.org");
console.log(await page.textContent("body"));
await browser.close();

import puppeteer from "puppeteer";

const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
  args: ["--proxy-server=http://HOST:PORT"],
});

const page = await browser.newPage();
// if auth is needed:
await page.authenticate({ username: "USER", password: "PASS" });

await page.goto("https://api.ipify.org");
console.log(await page.evaluate(() => document.body.innerText));
await browser.close();

Troubleshooting

• If pages load slow: reduce concurrency and enable request blocking for images/fonts
• If auth fails: confirm you used page.authenticate (Puppeteer) or proxy credentials (Playwright)
• If blocked: rotate IPs and reduce repeated navigation patterns