# Safari 27's Web Platform Test progress compared with Firefox and Chromium

DevFeed: [Safari 27's Web Platform Test progress compared with Firefox and Chromium](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/abject-praise-26565.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://infrequently.org/2026/07/abject-praise/>)

Author: Alex Russell

Published: 2026-07-06T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Alex Russell](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/alex-russell.md>)

Topics: [browser](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/browser.md>), [Web platform](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/web-platform.md>), [Chromium](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/chromium.md>), [Firefox](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/firefox.md>)

Tags: [browsers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/browsers.md>), [chromium](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/chromium.md>), [competition](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/competition.md>), [firefox](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/firefox.md>), [openweb](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/openweb.md>), [safari](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/safari.md>), [test](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/test.md>), [web-platform](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web-platform.md>), [webdev](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/webdev.md>)

## AI overview

An opinion article argues that Safari 27's quality and Web Platform Test improvements should be assessed against its slower release cadence and compared with Firefox and Chromium. It says Safari's time-weighted rate of improved tests is lower than those competitors.

## Source excerpt

It's perilous to disagree with someone as wise and thoughtful as Jeremy, but for the past fortnight his post in response to Apple's iOS 27 marketing invades my quiet moments like a cricket in the attic. "Why", I ruminate, "should someone who understands the state of play give Apple credit for doing less than the minimum while rubbishing those who have consistently done more?" Contents Redux Features Over Tests Focus Areas Consequences You Do Not Have To Hand It To Them Everywhere You Turn Quality Has A Quality All Its Own Redux Like Apple's previous marketing of Safari 16.4 and Safari 26, the conjoined September release of Safari and iOS 27 documents an achingly slow release cycle. It would be one thing if the features or spec conformance were world-beating, but looking closely at the release notes, Safari 27 is set to deliver fixes for issues that, by and large, competing engines didn't suffer.1 Don't get me wrong: it's great that Apple is focusing on quality; it remains a persistent issue for Safari. But how much relief should long-suffering web developers expect? The best comparative measures come from the communal Web Platform Tests project. Comparing the current experimental builds with stable channel releases can illuminate the scale of change we can expect when the next major version of each browser launches:2 WPT Test Pass Rates (%) 90% is the minimum Apple requires across all WPT tests for competitors' engines in the EU and Japan where it has been forced to allow them (in theory). Safari barely clears the bar. Source: wpt.fyi It would appear that Safari is closing on Firefox, but this is misleading. Apple managed seven releases over the past year, or a roughly eight week cadence. Mozilla and Chromium, meanwhile, have released 12 versions to stable, or one a month. These serve as denominators (7.4 weeks vs. 4.3) when calculating rates of improvement. Safari's larger increase in passing tests between nightly and stable versions (1558 vs. 990 for Firefox) look