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  1. Stackups
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  4. Web Cache
  5. Karma vs Varnish

Karma vs Varnish

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Varnish
Varnish
Stacks12.6K
Followers2.7K
Votes370
GitHub Stars887
Forks195
Karma
Karma
Stacks4.8K
Followers603
Votes181
GitHub Stars12.0K
Forks1.7K

Karma vs Varnish: What are the differences?

What is Karma? Spectacular Test Runner for JavaScript. 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.

What is Varnish? High-performance HTTP accelerator. Varnish Cache is a web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy. You install it in front of any server that speaks HTTP and configure it to cache the contents. Varnish Cache is really, really fast. It typically speeds up delivery with a factor of 300 - 1000x, depending on your architecture.

Karma can be classified as a tool in the "Browser Testing" category, while Varnish is grouped under "Web Cache".

"Test Runner" is the top reason why over 56 developers like Karma, while over 99 developers mention "High-performance" as the leading cause for choosing Varnish.

Karma and Varnish are both open source tools. Karma with 10.7K GitHub stars and 1.61K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Varnish with 908 GitHub stars and 216 GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, Varnish has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1006 company stacks & 140 developers stacks; compared to Karma, which is listed in 119 company stacks and 57 developer stacks.

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Detailed Comparison

Varnish
Varnish
Karma
Karma

Varnish Cache is a web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy. You install it in front of any server that speaks HTTP and configure it to cache the contents. Varnish Cache is really, really fast. It typically speeds up delivery with a factor of 300 - 1000x, depending on your architecture.

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.

Powerful, feature-rich web cache;HTTP accelerator; Speed up the performance of your website and streaming services
Test on Real Devices;Remote Control;Testing Framework Agnostic;Open Source;Easy Debugging;Continuous Integration
Statistics
GitHub Stars
887
GitHub Stars
12.0K
GitHub Forks
195
GitHub Forks
1.7K
Stacks
12.6K
Stacks
4.8K
Followers
2.7K
Followers
603
Votes
370
Votes
181
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 104
    High-performance
  • 67
    Very Fast
  • 57
    Very Stable
  • 44
    Very Robust
  • 37
    HTTP reverse proxy
Pros
  • 61
    Test Runner
  • 35
    Open source
  • 27
    Continuous Integration
  • 22
    Great for running tests
  • 18
    Test on Real Devices
Cons
  • 1
    Requires the use of hacks to find tests dynamically
  • 1
    Slow, because tests are run in a real browser
Integrations
No integrations available
Jasmine
Jasmine
Mocha
Mocha

What are some alternatives to Varnish, Karma?

BrowserStack

BrowserStack

BrowserStack is the leading test platform built for developers & QAs to expand test coverage, scale & optimize testing with cross-browser, real device cloud, accessibility, visual testing, test management, and test observability.

Selenium

Selenium

Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that. Boring web-based administration tasks can (and should!) also be automated as well.

Sauce Labs

Sauce Labs

Cloud-based automated testing platform enables developers and QEs to perform functional, JavaScript unit, and manual tests with Selenium or Appium on web and mobile apps. Videos and screenshots for easy debugging. Secure and CI-ready.

LambdaTest

LambdaTest

LambdaTest platform provides secure, scalable and insightful test orchestration for website, and mobile app testing. Customers at different points in their DevOps lifecycle can leverage Automation and/or Manual testing on LambdaTest.

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.

Section

Section

Edge Compute Platform gives Dev and Ops engineers the access and control they need to run compute workloads on a distributed edge.

Rainforest QA

Rainforest QA

Rainforest gives you the reliability of a QA team and the speed of automation, without the hassle of managing a team or the pain of writing automated tests.

WebdriverIO

WebdriverIO

WebdriverIO lets you control a browser or a mobile application with just a few lines of code. Your test code will look simple, concise and easy to read.

TestingBot

TestingBot

TestingBot provides automated and Manual cross browser testing in the cloud. Make sure your website looks ok in all browsers.

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.

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