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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Testing Frameworks
  4. Javascript Testing Framework
  5. Jest vs PhantomJS

Jest vs PhantomJS

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Jest
Jest
Stacks15.2K
Followers4.1K
Votes175
PhantomJS
PhantomJS
Stacks1.7K
Followers430
Votes18
GitHub Stars29.5K
Forks5.7K

Jest vs PhantomJS: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore the key differences between Jest and PhantomJS. Both Jest and PhantomJS are popular tools used by developers for testing and automation purposes. However, they have several differences in terms of features, performance, and compatibility.

  1. Execution Environment: Jest is a testing framework built on top of Jasmine that runs in a Node.js environment. It provides a command-line interface for running tests and supports a wide range of features such as mocking, code coverage, and snapshot testing. On the other hand, PhantomJS is a headless browser that provides a web browsing context without the need for a graphical user interface. It supports web automation, allowing developers to simulate user interactions and perform tasks like taking screenshots or scraping web pages.

  2. Browser Compatibility: Jest runs tests in a Node.js environment, meaning it does not have the functionality to accurately test browser-specific behaviors. In contrast, PhantomJS provides a full web browsing environment, allowing developers to test and automate interactions in a browser-like environment. This makes PhantomJS a better choice for testing web applications that rely heavily on browser-specific features or behaviors.

  3. Page Rendering: While Jest can render components and perform virtual DOM diffing, it does not support actual page rendering. On the other hand, PhantomJS can render web pages and execute JavaScript within them, making it suitable for tasks that involve dynamic rendering or manipulating the DOM.

  4. Community Support: Jest has gained significant popularity in the JavaScript community and has a large and active community of contributors. It provides extensive documentation and a wide range of plugins and integrations with popular tools. PhantomJS, on the other hand, has seen a decline in popularity in recent years and its development has been stalled. As a result, Jest has better community support and a more vibrant ecosystem.

  5. Performance: In terms of performance, Jest has a faster test execution time compared to PhantomJS. This is mainly because Jest runs in a Node.js environment, which is typically faster than running tests in a headless browser like PhantomJS.

  6. Ease of Setup: Jest is relatively easy to set up and configure, thanks to its built-in test runner and a simple configuration file. It also has a zero-configuration mode, where you can run tests without any setup. On the other hand, setting up PhantomJS requires installing the PhantomJS binary and configuring the desired capabilities for your tests.

In summary, Jest, being a testing framework running in a Node.js environment, is best suited for unit and integration testing, providing a wide range of features and better community support. PhantomJS, as a headless browser, is more suitable for testing web applications with browser-specific behaviors and tasks requiring actual page rendering.

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Advice on Jest, PhantomJS

Dane
Dane

Feb 7, 2020

Needs adviceonCypressCypressJestJest

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.

836k views836k
Comments
Ankur
Ankur

Software Engineer

Dec 4, 2019

Needs advice

I am using Node 12 for server scripting and have a function to generate PDF and send it to a browser. Currently, we are using PhantomJS to generate a PDF. Some web post shows that we can achieve PDF generation using Puppeteer. I was a bit confused. Should we move to puppeteerJS? Which one is better with NodeJS for generating PDF?

73k views73k
Comments
Anonymous
Anonymous

Feb 6, 2020

Needs advice

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.

290k views290k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Jest
Jest
PhantomJS
PhantomJS

Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.

PhantomJS is a headless WebKit scriptable with JavaScript. It is used by hundreds of developers and dozens of organizations for web-related development workflow.

Familiar Approach: Built on top of the Jasmine test framework, using familiar expect(value).toBe(other) assertions;Mock by Default: Automatically mocks CommonJS modules returned by require(), making most existing code testable;Short Feedback Loop: DOM APIs are mocked and tests run in parallel via a small node.js command line utility
Multiplatform, available on major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other Unices; Fast and native implementation of web standards: DOM, CSS, JavaScript, Canvas, and SVG. No emulation; Pure headless (no X11) on Linux, ideal for continuous integration systems. Also runs on Amazon EC2, Heroku, and Iron.io; Easy to install: Download, unpack, and start having fun in just 5 minutes
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
29.5K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
5.7K
Stacks
15.2K
Stacks
1.7K
Followers
4.1K
Followers
430
Votes
175
Votes
18
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 36
    Open source
  • 32
    Mock by default makes testing much simpler
  • 23
    Testing React Native Apps
  • 20
    Parallel test running
  • 16
    Fast
Cons
  • 4
    Documentation
  • 4
    Ambiguous configuration
  • 3
    Difficult
  • 2
    Multiple error messages for same error
  • 2
    Difficult to run single test/describe/file
Pros
  • 13
    Scriptable web browser
  • 3
    Depends on QT
  • 2
    No ECMAScript 6
Integrations
No integrations available
FreeBSD
FreeBSD
macOS
macOS
Windows
Windows
Linux
Linux

What are some alternatives to Jest, PhantomJS?

Mocha

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.

Jasmine

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.

Cypress

Cypress

Cypress is a front end automated testing application created for the modern web. Cypress is built on a new architecture and runs in the same run-loop as the application being tested. As a result Cypress provides better, faster, and more reliable testing for anything that runs in a browser. Cypress works on any front-end framework or website.

Playwright

Playwright

It is a Node library to automate the Chromium, WebKit and Firefox browsers with a single API. It enables cross-browser web automation that is ever-green, capable, reliable and fast.

CodeceptJS

CodeceptJS

It is a modern end to end testing framework with a special BDD-style syntax. The test is written as a linear scenario of user's action on a site. Each test is described inside a Scenario function with I object passed into it.

Protractor

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.

AVA

AVA

Even though JavaScript is single-threaded, IO in Node.js can happen in parallel due to its async nature. AVA takes advantage of this and runs your tests concurrently, which is especially beneficial for IO heavy tests. In addition, test files are run in parallel as separate processes, giving you even better performance and an isolated environment for each test file.

Puppeteer

Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome over the DevTools Protocol. It can also be configured to use full (non-headless) Chrome.

Ghost Inspector

Ghost Inspector

It lets you create and manage UI tests that check specific functionality in your website or application. We execute these automated browser tests continuously from the cloud and alert you if anything breaks.

QUnit

QUnit

QUnit is a powerful, easy-to-use JavaScript unit testing framework. It's used by the jQuery, jQuery UI and jQuery Mobile projects and is capable of testing any generic JavaScript code, including itself!

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