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Jasmine

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Jasmine vs Jest vs Protractor: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Jasmine and Jest and Protractor

Jasmine:

  1. Syntax and Language Support: Jasmine is a behavior-driven testing framework that supports JavaScript, CoffeeScript, and TypeScript.
  2. Test Runner: Jasmine provides its own test runner and does not require any additional configuration or setup.
  3. Assertions: Jasmine provides a rich set of built-in assertions and matchers to write test cases.
  4. Mocks and Spies: Jasmine has built-in capabilities for mocking and spying on function calls.
  5. Timeouts and Async Support: Jasmine provides timeouts and supports testing asynchronous code using callbacks or promises.
  6. Browser Support: Jasmine is mainly designed for testing JavaScript applications and does not provide built-in functionality for testing web applications in browsers.

Jest:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Mocking and Spying: Jest provides a built-in mocking library that allows developers to easily mock dependencies and spy on function calls.
  4. Code Coverage: Jest has built-in code coverage support and provides detailed reports on how much of the codebase is covered by tests.
  5. Parallel Execution: Jest can run test suites in parallel, which greatly improves the performance of test execution.
  6. Browser Support: Jest can be used for testing both JavaScript and web applications in browsers using tools like puppeteer or jsdom.

Protractor:

  1. Built for Angular: Protractor is a specialized testing framework designed for testing Angular applications.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Browser Support: Protractor provides out-of-the-box support for testing in modern web browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
  5. Asynchronous Support: Protractor handles asynchronous operations seamlessly, allowing developers to write tests without worrying about timing issues.
  6. 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.

Advice on Jasmine, Jest, 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...

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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

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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

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Decisions about Jasmine, Jest, and Protractor
Shared insights
on
CypressCypressJestJest

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.

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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.

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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.

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Pros of Jasmine
Pros of Jest
Pros of Protractor
  • 64
    Can also be used for tdd
  • 49
    Open source
  • 18
    Originally from RSpec
  • 15
    Great community
  • 14
    No dependencies, not even DOM
  • 10
    Easy to setup
  • 8
    Simple
  • 3
    Created by Pivotal-Labs
  • 2
    Works with KarmaJs
  • 1
    Jasmine is faster than selenium in angular application
  • 1
    SpyOn to fake calls
  • 1
    Async and promises are easy calls with "done"
  • 36
    Open source
  • 32
    Mock by default makes testing much simpler
  • 23
    Testing React Native Apps
  • 20
    Parallel test running
  • 16
    Fast
  • 13
    Bundled with JSDOM to enable DOM testing
  • 8
    Mock by default screws up your classes, breaking tests
  • 7
    Out of the box code coverage
  • 7
    Promise support
  • 6
    One stop shop for unit testing
  • 3
    Great documentation
  • 2
    Assert Library Included
  • 1
    Built in watch option with interactive filtering menu
  • 1
    Preset support
  • 0
    Can be used for BDD
  • 0
    Karma
  • 9
    Easy setup
  • 8
    Quick tests implementation
  • 6
    Flexible
  • 5
    Open source
  • 5
    Promise support

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Cons of Jasmine
Cons of Jest
Cons of Protractor
  • 2
    Unfriendly error logs
  • 4
    Documentation
  • 4
    Ambiguous configuration
  • 3
    Difficult
  • 2
    Many bugs still not fixed months/years after reporting
  • 2
    Multiple error messages for same error
  • 2
    Difficult to run single test/describe/file
  • 2
    Ambiguous
  • 2
    Bugged
  • 1
    BeforeAll timing out makes all passing tests fail
  • 1
    Slow
  • 1
    Reporter is too general
  • 1
    Unstable
  • 1
    Bad docs
  • 1
    Still does't support .mjs files natively
  • 1
    Can't fail beforeAll to abort tests
  • 0
    Interaction with watch mode on terminal
  • 4
    Limited

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What is Jasmine?

Jasmine is a Behavior Driven Development testing framework for JavaScript. It does not rely on browsers, DOM, or any JavaScript framework. Thus it's suited for websites, Node.js projects, or anywhere that JavaScript can run.

What is Jest?

Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.

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.

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What are some alternatives to Jasmine, Jest, 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.
Karma
Karma is not a testing framework, nor an assertion library. Karma just launches a HTTP server, and generates the test runner HTML file you probably already know from your favourite testing framework. So for testing purposes you can use pretty much anything you like.
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.
Visual Studio Code
Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.
See all alternatives