Appium vs Jest

Overview

Jest

Stacks15.2K

Followers4.1K

Votes175

Appium

Stacks650

Followers574

Votes28

GitHub Stars20.8K

Forks6.2K

Appium vs Jest: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore the key differences between Appium and Jest. Appium and Jest are both popular tools used in the software development industry, but they serve different purposes and have distinct features. Understanding these differences can help developers determine which tool is best suited for their specific needs.

Development Purpose: Appium is a cross-platform mobile automation framework that allows developers to test mobile applications on various devices and platforms. It provides a way to write and execute automated tests for native, hybrid, and mobile web applications using a single API. On the other hand, Jest is a JavaScript testing framework developed by Facebook. It is primarily used for unit testing and offers a simple and intuitive API for testing JavaScript code.
Testing Capabilities: Appium focuses on mobile application testing and provides features like automating gestures, simulating device attributes, and accessing native APIs. It supports multiple programming languages such as Java, Python, and Ruby. On the contrary, Jest is designed for JavaScript testing and is optimized for testing React applications. It offers features like snapshot testing, mocking functions, and running tests in parallel.
Platforms Supported: Appium supports a wide range of platforms including iOS, Android, and Windows. It allows developers to write tests that can target different mobile operating systems without modifying the test code significantly. In contrast, Jest is primarily used for testing JavaScript code and is not specifically focused on a particular platform. However, it can be used in combination with other tools to test web applications and mobile apps.
Integration with IDEs: Appium can be integrated with popular IDEs such as Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA, providing developers with a convenient development environment. It also offers plugins for popular continuous integration tools like Jenkins and Travis CI. On the other hand, Jest has good integration with popular JavaScript IDEs like Visual Studio Code and WebStorm. It also supports various plugins for code editors and continuous integration tools.
Community Support: Appium has a large and active community of developers and testers who contribute to its development and provide support. It is an open-source project with a dedicated team of contributors. Jest, developed and maintained by Facebook, also has a growing community and is backed by a renowned tech giant. It benefits from the expertise and support of Facebook's engineering team.
Learning Curve: Appium offers a wide range of features and supports multiple programming languages, which can make it complex for beginners to grasp. It requires understanding the underlying concepts of mobile application testing and familiarity with programming languages. On the other hand, Jest has a relatively easy learning curve, especially for developers familiar with JavaScript. Its API is straightforward and easy to understand, making it suitable for beginners.

In summary, Appium is a cross-platform mobile automation framework focused on mobile application testing, while Jest is a JavaScript testing framework primarily used for unit testing. Appium supports a wide range of platforms, integrates with popular IDEs, and has a large community of developers. Jest is optimized for testing JS code, integrates with JS IDEs, and has a growing community. Appium has a steeper learning curve, while Jest is beginner-friendly.

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Advice on Jest, Appium

Dane

Feb 7, 2020

Needs adviceon

Cypress

Jest

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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Comments

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	Appium
Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.	Appium is an open source test automation framework for use with native, hybrid, and mobile web apps. It drives iOS and Android apps using the WebDriver protocol. Appium is sponsored by Sauce Labs and a thriving community of open source developers.
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	Works on native and hybrid mobile apps; Write mobile tests using any language or framework; Open source; Facilitates mobile continuous integration; Mobile test automation tool; Cross-platform (iOS, Android); Framework based on Selenium
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 20.8K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 6.2K
Stacks 15.2K	Stacks 650
Followers 4.1K	Followers 574
Votes 175	Votes 28
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 Ambiguous configuration 4 Documentation 3 Difficult 2 Bugged 2 Many bugs still not fixed months/years after reporting	Pros 12 Webdriverio support 6 Java, C#, Python support 3 Open source 2 Active community 2 Great GUI with inspector
Integrations
No integrations available	Sauce Labs

What are some alternatives to Jest, Appium?

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 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 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

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 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

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

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 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!

Sorry-cypress

Open-source, self-hosted alternative Cypress Dashboard.

Baretest

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

Related Comparisons

Appium vs Jest: What are the differences?

Introduction

Development Purpose: Appium is a cross-platform mobile automation framework that allows developers to test mobile applications on various devices and platforms. It provides a way to write and execute automated tests for native, hybrid, and mobile web applications using a single API. On the other hand, Jest is a JavaScript testing framework developed by Facebook. It is primarily used for unit testing and offers a simple and intuitive API for testing JavaScript code.
Testing Capabilities: Appium focuses on mobile application testing and provides features like automating gestures, simulating device attributes, and accessing native APIs. It supports multiple programming languages such as Java, Python, and Ruby. On the contrary, Jest is designed for JavaScript testing and is optimized for testing React applications. It offers features like snapshot testing, mocking functions, and running tests in parallel.
Platforms Supported: Appium supports a wide range of platforms including iOS, Android, and Windows. It allows developers to write tests that can target different mobile operating systems without modifying the test code significantly. In contrast, Jest is primarily used for testing JavaScript code and is not specifically focused on a particular platform. However, it can be used in combination with other tools to test web applications and mobile apps.
Integration with IDEs: Appium can be integrated with popular IDEs such as Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA, providing developers with a convenient development environment. It also offers plugins for popular continuous integration tools like Jenkins and Travis CI. On the other hand, Jest has good integration with popular JavaScript IDEs like Visual Studio Code and WebStorm. It also supports various plugins for code editors and continuous integration tools.
Community Support: Appium has a large and active community of developers and testers who contribute to its development and provide support. It is an open-source project with a dedicated team of contributors. Jest, developed and maintained by Facebook, also has a growing community and is backed by a renowned tech giant. It benefits from the expertise and support of Facebook's engineering team.
Learning Curve: Appium offers a wide range of features and supports multiple programming languages, which can make it complex for beginners to grasp. It requires understanding the underlying concepts of mobile application testing and familiarity with programming languages. On the other hand, Jest has a relatively easy learning curve, especially for developers familiar with JavaScript. Its API is straightforward and easy to understand, making it suitable for beginners.

Appium vs Jest

Overview