## TL;DR

Cypress is a JavaScript end-to-end testing framework that runs directly in the browser, providing real-time reloading, automatic waiting, and time-travel debugging. It competes with Selenium and Playwright. Cypress runs in the same event loop as the application.

## Core Explanation

Key features: automatic retries and waiting (no `sleep()`), screenshots and videos of test runs, component testing (Cypress 10+, mounts React/Vue components), network stubbing (`cy.intercept()`). No multi-tab or multi-browser support (this is by design — Cypress runs in a single browser instance). Playwright (Microsoft) is the main alternative with multi-browser support.

## Further Reading

- [Cypress Documentation](https://docs.cypress.io/)