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Jasmine vs Jest vs Protractor: What are the differences?
Key Differences between Jasmine and Jest and Protractor
Jasmine:
- Syntax and Language Support: Jasmine is a behavior-driven testing framework that supports JavaScript, CoffeeScript, and TypeScript.
- Test Runner: Jasmine provides its own test runner and does not require any additional configuration or setup.
- Assertions: Jasmine provides a rich set of built-in assertions and matchers to write test cases.
- Mocks and Spies: Jasmine has built-in capabilities for mocking and spying on function calls.
- Timeouts and Async Support: Jasmine provides timeouts and supports testing asynchronous code using callbacks or promises.
- Browser Support: Jasmine is mainly designed for testing JavaScript applications and does not provide built-in functionality for testing web applications in browsers.
Jest:
- Syntax and Language Support: Jest is a testing framework for JavaScript that supports modern JavaScript features like ES modules, async/await, and import/export statements.
- Snapshot Testing: Jest has a powerful snapshot testing feature that allows developers to capture the output of a component or function and compare it with the stored snapshot.
- Mocking and Spying: Jest provides a built-in mocking library that allows developers to easily mock dependencies and spy on function calls.
- Code Coverage: Jest has built-in code coverage support and provides detailed reports on how much of the codebase is covered by tests.
- Parallel Execution: Jest can run test suites in parallel, which greatly improves the performance of test execution.
- Browser Support: Jest can be used for testing both JavaScript and web applications in browsers using tools like puppeteer or jsdom.
Protractor:
- Built for Angular: Protractor is a specialized testing framework designed for testing Angular applications.
- End-to-End Testing: Protractor is mainly used for end-to-end testing of Angular applications, where it can simulate user interactions and test the application's behavior.
- Angular Specific Features: Protractor provides features specifically tailored for Angular applications, like automatic synchronization with Angular's event loop, Angular-specific locators, and Angular-specific matchers.
- Browser Support: Protractor provides out-of-the-box support for testing in modern web browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
- Asynchronous Support: Protractor handles asynchronous operations seamlessly, allowing developers to write tests without worrying about timing issues.
- Integration with WebDriver: Protractor seamlessly integrates with WebDriver, making it easy to take advantage of various browser automation features.
In Summary, Jasmine is a versatile behavior-driven testing framework with rich capabilities, Jest is a JavaScript testing framework with powerful snapshot testing and code coverage features, and Protractor is a specialized testing framework for testing Angular applications with Angular-specific features and seamless integration with WebDriver.
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...
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
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
As we all know testing is an important part of any application. To assist with our testing we are going to use both Cypress and Jest. We feel these tools complement each other and will help us get good coverage of our code. We will use Cypress for our end to end testing as we've found it quite user friendly. Jest will be used for our unit tests because we've seen how many larger companies use it with great success.
Postman will be used to do integration testing with the backend API we create. It offers a clean interface to create many requests, and you can even organize these requests into collections. It helps to test the backend API first to make sure it's working before using it in the front-end. Jest can also be used for testing and is already embedded into React. Not only does it offer unit testing support in javascript, it can also do snapshot testing for the front-end to make sure components are rendering correctly. Enzyme is complementary to Jest and offers more functions such as shallow rendering. UnitTest will be used for Python testing as it is simple, has a lot of functionality and already built in with python. Sentry will be used for keeping track of errors as it is also easily integratable with Heroku because they offer it as an add-on. LogDNA will be used for tracking logs which are not errors and is also a Heroku add-on. Its good to have a separate service to record logs, monitor, track and even fix errors in real-time so our application can run more smoothly.
We use Mocha for our FDA verification testing. It's integrated into Meteor, our upstream web application framework. We like how battle tested it is, its' syntax, its' options of reporters, and countless other features. Most everybody can agree on mocha, and that gets us half-way through our FDA verification and validation (V&V) testing strategy.
Pros of Jasmine
- Can also be used for tdd64
- Open source49
- Originally from RSpec18
- Great community15
- No dependencies, not even DOM14
- Easy to setup10
- Simple8
- Created by Pivotal-Labs3
- Works with KarmaJs2
- Jasmine is faster than selenium in angular application1
- SpyOn to fake calls1
- Async and promises are easy calls with "done"1
Pros of Jest
- Open source36
- Mock by default makes testing much simpler32
- Testing React Native Apps23
- Parallel test running20
- Fast16
- Bundled with JSDOM to enable DOM testing13
- Mock by default screws up your classes, breaking tests8
- Out of the box code coverage7
- Promise support7
- One stop shop for unit testing6
- Great documentation3
- Assert Library Included2
- Built in watch option with interactive filtering menu1
- Preset support1
- Can be used for BDD0
- Karma0
Pros of Protractor
- Easy setup9
- Quick tests implementation8
- Flexible6
- Open source5
- Promise support5
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Cons of Jasmine
- Unfriendly error logs2
Cons of Jest
- Documentation4
- Ambiguous configuration4
- Difficult3
- Many bugs still not fixed months/years after reporting2
- Multiple error messages for same error2
- Difficult to run single test/describe/file2
- Ambiguous2
- Bugged2
- BeforeAll timing out makes all passing tests fail1
- Slow1
- Reporter is too general1
- Unstable1
- Bad docs1
- Still does't support .mjs files natively1
- Can't fail beforeAll to abort tests1
- Interaction with watch mode on terminal0
Cons of Protractor
- Limited4