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Mocha vs Protractor: What are the differences?

Introduction

Mocha and Protractor are both popular frameworks used for testing web applications. However, they have several key differences that set them apart. In this article, we will explore these differences and provide a concise comparison between Mocha and Protractor.

  1. Testing Framework vs. End-to-End Testing Framework: The primary difference between Mocha and Protractor lies in their purpose. Mocha is a testing framework that can be used for various types of testing, including unit testing and integration testing. On the other hand, Protractor is an end-to-end testing framework specifically designed for testing AngularJS applications.

  2. Supported Languages: Mocha is a JavaScript testing framework and can be used with any JavaScript-based development stack. It is not limited to a specific language or technology. Protractor, on the other hand, is primarily used with AngularJS applications and supports only JavaScript for writing test cases.

  3. Asynchronous Testing: Mocha provides built-in support for handling asynchronous operations in tests. It allows developers to use callbacks, promises, or async/await syntax for handling asynchronous code. Protractor, being an end-to-end testing framework, is designed specifically for testing asynchronous AngularJS applications, and it handles asynchronous operations automatically. Developers do not need to use additional libraries or handle asynchronous code explicitly.

  4. Browser Automation: Protractor comes with built-in browser automation capabilities using WebDriverJS, which is a WebDriver implementation specifically designed for AngularJS applications. This makes it easier to automate browser actions and interact with AngularJS-specific elements. Mocha, being a generic testing framework, does not provide browser automation out of the box. To automate browser interactions, developers need to use additional libraries such as Selenium WebDriver.

  5. AngularJS Integration: Protractor is tightly integrated with AngularJS and provides special features for testing AngularJS-specific functionality, such as synchronization with AngularJS event loop and automatic waiting for AngularJS promises to resolve. Mocha, being a generic testing framework, does not have these special integrations with AngularJS and does not provide these features out of the box.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Mocha has a larger community and ecosystem compared to Protractor. It is a widely used testing framework and has a rich collection of plugins, integrations, and community-driven tools available. Protractor, being a specialized framework for testing AngularJS applications, has a smaller community and ecosystem in comparison.

In summary, Mocha is a versatile testing framework that can be used for various types of testing, while Protractor is specifically designed for end-to-end testing of AngularJS applications. Protractor provides built-in browser automation and AngularJS-specific integrations, but Mocha has a larger community and ecosystem.

Advice on Mocha and Protractor
Yildiz Dila
testmanager/automation tester at medicalservice · | 5 upvotes · 260.4K 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 · 159.3K 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 · 188.1K 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 Mocha and Protractor

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 Mocha
Pros of Protractor
  • 137
    Open source
  • 102
    Simple
  • 81
    Promise support
  • 48
    Flexible
  • 29
    Easy to add support for Generators
  • 12
    For browser and server testing
  • 7
    Curstom assertion libraries
  • 5
    Works with Karma
  • 3
    No other better tools
  • 1
    Simple setup
  • 1
    Works with saucelabs
  • 1
    Lots of tutorials and help online
  • 1
    Default reporter is nice, clean, and itemized
  • 1
    Works with BrowserStack
  • 1
    Simple integration testing
  • 9
    Easy setup
  • 8
    Quick tests implementation
  • 6
    Flexible
  • 5
    Open source
  • 5
    Promise support

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Cons of Mocha
Cons of Protractor
  • 3
    Cannot test a promisified functions without assertion
  • 2
    No assertion count in results
  • 1
    Not as many reporter options as Jest
  • 4
    Limited

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What is 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.

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 Mocha and Protractor?
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 provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.
Chai
It is a BDD / TDD assertion library for node and the browser that can be delightfully paired with any javascript testing framework. It has several interfaces that allow the developer to choose the most comfortable. The chain-capable BDD styles provide an expressive language & readable style, while the TDD assert style provides a more classical feel.
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.
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.
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