StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Testing Frameworks
  4. Javascript Testing Framework
  5. Mocha vs QUnit

Mocha vs QUnit

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Mocha
Mocha
Stacks10.8K
Followers3.0K
Votes430
QUnit
QUnit
Stacks914
Followers82
Votes17

Mocha vs QUnit: What are the differences?

Mocha and QUnit are both popular JavaScript testing frameworks used to perform unit testing in web applications. While they serve the same purpose of automating the testing process, there are several key differences between Mocha and QUnit.

  1. Structure and syntax: Mocha provides a more flexible and expressive syntax for writing test cases and supports various styles such as BDD (Behavior-Driven Development) and TDD (Test-Driven Development). On the other hand, QUnit follows a more traditional and simplistic approach with a structured syntax.

  2. Asynchronous testing: Mocha is known for its excellent support for asynchronous testing. It provides built-in mechanisms like promises and callbacks to handle async operations effectively. QUnit, on the other hand, requires explicit handling of asynchronous operations using its built-in special methods like assert.async().

  3. Test runner: Mocha provides a feature-rich test runner that runs tests in the browser, Node.js, or even on the command line. It allows you to specify the desired environment and provides a wide range of reporting options. QUnit, however, primarily focuses on browser-based testing and doesn't offer as many options for running tests in different environments.

  4. Plugin and integration ecosystem: Mocha has a vast ecosystem of plugins and integrations with various libraries and tools, making it highly customizable and extensible. Conversely, QUnit has a smaller plugin ecosystem and is generally integrated with other frameworks like jQuery.

  5. Assertions: Mocha relies on external assertion libraries like Chai for performing assertions in tests. This allows developers to choose from a wide range of assertion styles and libraries. QUnit, on the other hand, has a built-in assertion API that covers most use cases, making it easier to get started without any additional dependencies.

  6. Community and adoption: Mocha has a large and active community with widespread adoption in both open-source projects and commercial applications. It is often the preferred choice for developers due to its flexibility and extensive features. QUnit, while still popular, has a relatively smaller community and is commonly used in projects that heavily utilize or are built on the jQuery library.

In summary, Mocha provides a more flexible syntax, extensive asynchronous testing support, and a rich plugin ecosystem, while QUnit offers a simpler syntax, built-in assertion API, and close integration with jQuery. The choice between Mocha and QUnit largely depends on the specific requirements and preferences of the project and development team.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Advice on Mocha, QUnit

Ben
Ben

Lead Front End Developer at Crunch

Jan 28, 2022

Decided

We were able to combine multiple tools with Jest and React Testing Library (e.g. sinon, enzyme, chai). Jest has powerful cli options and increased performance including from parallel testing processes. Migrating was reasonably straight forward as there is a code transformation script to do most of the leg work. Jest's documentation is excellent.

47.8k views47.8k
Comments
Abigail
Abigail

Dec 10, 2019

Decided

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.

231k views231k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Mocha
Mocha
QUnit
QUnit

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.

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!

browser support;simple async support, including promises;test coverage reporting;string diff support;javascript API for running tests;proper exit status for CI support etc;auto-detects and disables coloring for non-ttys;maps uncaught exceptions to the correct test case;async test timeout support;test-specific timeouts;growl notification support;reports test durations;highlights slow tests;file watcher support;global variable leak detection
-
Statistics
Stacks
10.8K
Stacks
914
Followers
3.0K
Followers
82
Votes
430
Votes
17
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 137
    Open source
  • 102
    Simple
  • 81
    Promise support
  • 48
    Flexible
  • 29
    Easy to add support for Generators
Cons
  • 3
    Cannot test a promisified functions without assertion
  • 2
    No assertion count in results
  • 1
    Not as many reporter options as Jest
Pros
  • 6
    Simple
  • 4
    Open Source
  • 3
    Promise support
  • 3
    Easy setup
  • 1
    Excellent GUI

What are some alternatives to Mocha, QUnit?

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.

Jest

Jest

Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.

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.

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.

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.

Sorry-cypress

Sorry-cypress

Open-source, self-hosted alternative Cypress Dashboard.

Baretest

Baretest

It is a fast and simple JavaScript test runner. It offers near-instant performance and a brainless API. It makes testing tolerable.

SinonJS

SinonJS

It is a really helpful library when you want to unit test your code. It supports spies, stubs, and mocks. The library has cross browser support and also can run on the server using Node.js.

Related Comparisons

GitHub
Bitbucket

Bitbucket vs GitHub vs GitLab

GitHub
Bitbucket

AWS CodeCommit vs Bitbucket vs GitHub

Kubernetes
Rancher

Docker Swarm vs Kubernetes vs Rancher

gulp
Grunt

Grunt vs Webpack vs gulp

Graphite
Kibana

Grafana vs Graphite vs Kibana