Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Chai

3.9K
196
+ 1
0
Protractor

1K
543
+ 1
33
Add tool

Chai vs Protractor: What are the differences?

What is Chai? A BDD / TDD assertion library. It is a BDD / TDD assertion library for node and the browser that can be delightfully paired with any javascript testing framework. It has several interfaces that allow the developer to choose the most comfortable. The chain-capable BDD styles provide an expressive language & readable style, while the TDD assert style provides a more classical feel.

What is Protractor? End-to-end test framework for Angular and AngularJS applications. Protractor is an end-to-end test framework for Angular and AngularJS applications. Protractor runs tests against your application running in a real browser, interacting with it as a user would.

Chai and Protractor belong to "Javascript Testing Framework" category of the tech stack.

Chai and Protractor are both open source tools. It seems that Protractor with 8.24K GitHub stars and 2.23K forks on GitHub has more adoption than Chai with 6.39K GitHub stars and 575 GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, Protractor has a broader approval, being mentioned in 24 company stacks & 22 developers stacks; compared to Chai, which is listed in 6 company stacks and 8 developer stacks.

Advice on Chai and Protractor
Yildiz Dila
testmanager/automation tester at medicalservice · | 5 upvotes · 269.5K views
Needs advice
on
CypressCypress
and
ProtractorProtractor

In the company I will be building test automation framework and my new company develops apps mainly using AngularJS/TypeScript. I was planning to build Protractor-Jasmine framework but a friend of mine told me about Cypress and heard that its users are very satisfied with it. I am trying to understand the capabilities of Cypress and as the final goal to differentiate these two tools. Can anyone advice me on this in a nutshell pls...

See more
Replies (2)
Kevin Emery
QE Systems Engineer at Discovery, Inc. · | 4 upvotes · 165.9K views
Recommends
on
CypressCypressProtractorProtractor

I've used both Protractor and Cypress extensively. Cypress is the easier and more reliable tool, whereas Protractor is the more powerful tool. Your choice of tool should depend on your specific testing needs. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of each tool:

Cypress advantages:

  • Faster

  • More reliable (tends to throw fewer intermittent false failures)

  • Easier to read code (handles promises gracefully)

Cypress disadvantages:

  • Cannot switch between browser tabs

  • Cannot switch to iFrames

  • Cannot specify clicks or keypresses explicitly as if a real user was interacting

  • Cannot move the mouse to specific co-ordinates

  • Sometimes has trouble switching between different top-level domains, so not good for testing external links

  • Cypress is a newer tool with less extensive documentation and less community support

Protractor advantages:

  • More powerful because it is Selenium-based - it can switch between tabs, it can handle external links to other domains, it can handle iFrames, simulate keypresses and clicks, and move the mouse to specific co-ordinates within the browser.

  • More extensive community support and documentation

Protractor disadvantages:

  • Slower and more brittle - in general there is a higher likelihood of cryptic and/or intermittent errors which may cause your tests to fail even though there is nothing wrong with your application

  • For highly experienced automation engineers, the fundamental "brittle" nature of Selenium can be worked around - it can be reliable but only if you really know what you are doing

  • Less graceful handling of promises - relies on async/await or .then to manage the order of execution. Therefore it is a bit harder to read the code.

  • Harder to set up, and the method of setup impacts its reliability. For example, a hub/node configuration where the selenium jar is on a different physical machine than the browser under test will cause unreliability in your tests. Not everyone knows about this type of thing, so it's common to find Selenium frameworks that are set up poorly.

It's probably better to use Cypress if

  • you're at a smaller company and have a close relationship with developers who can help write hooks or stubs in their code to assist your testing

  • you don't need to do things like switch between tabs or test links to external top-level domains

It's probably better to use Protractor if

  • You might need to switch between tabs or test external links to other domains within the scope of your framework

  • You want to use a more accurate simulation of how a real user interacts with a browser (i.e. click at this location, type these keys)

  • You're at a company where you won't have any support from developers in writing hooks or stubs to make their code more testable in a less powerful framework like Cypress

See more
Jian Wang
Web Engineer at sentaca · | 1 upvotes · 194.7K views
Recommends

Please try Handow, the e2e tool basing on Puppeteer.

Gherkin syntax compatible

Chrome/Chromium orentied, driven by Puppeteer engine

Complete JavaScript programming

Create test suites rapidly without coding (or a little bit), basing on built-in steps library

Schedule test with plans and arrange stories with sequential stages

Fast running, execute story groups in parallel by multi-workers

Built-in single page report render

Cover page view, REST API and cookies test

https://github.com/newlifewj/handow

http://demo.shm.handow.org/reports

See more
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More
Pros of Chai
Pros of Protractor
    Be the first to leave a pro
    • 9
      Easy setup
    • 8
      Quick tests implementation
    • 6
      Flexible
    • 5
      Open source
    • 5
      Promise support

    Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

    Cons of Chai
    Cons of Protractor
      Be the first to leave a con
      • 4
        Limited

      Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

      What is Chai?

      It is a BDD / TDD assertion library for node and the browser that can be delightfully paired with any javascript testing framework. It has several interfaces that allow the developer to choose the most comfortable. The chain-capable BDD styles provide an expressive language & readable style, while the TDD assert style provides a more classical feel.

      What is Protractor?

      Protractor is an end-to-end test framework for Angular and AngularJS applications. Protractor runs tests against your application running in a real browser, interacting with it as a user would.

      Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

      What companies use Chai?
      What companies use Protractor?
      Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
      Learn More

      Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

      What tools integrate with Chai?
      What tools integrate with Protractor?

      Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

      What are some alternatives to Chai and Protractor?
      Mocha
      Mocha is a feature-rich JavaScript test framework running on node.js and the browser, making asynchronous testing simple and fun. Mocha tests run serially, allowing for flexible and accurate reporting, while mapping uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases.
      Matcha
      Matcha is a package for building iOS and Android applications and frameworks in Go. Matcha provides a UI component library similar to ReactNative and exposes bindings to Objective-C and Java code through reflection. The library also provides Go APIs for common app tasks.
      Jest
      Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.
      Git
      Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
      GitHub
      GitHub is the best place to share code with friends, co-workers, classmates, and complete strangers. Over three million people use GitHub to build amazing things together.
      See all alternatives