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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Testing Frameworks
  4. Browser Testing
  5. AVA vs Karma

AVA vs Karma

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Karma
Karma
Stacks4.8K
Followers603
Votes181
GitHub Stars12.0K
Forks1.7K
AVA
AVA
Stacks105
Followers205
Votes32

AVA vs Karma: What are the differences?

What is AVA? A refined, futuristic test runner. 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.

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.

AVA and Karma are primarily classified as "Javascript Testing Framework" and "Browser Testing" tools respectively.

"Simple and fast" is the top reason why over 11 developers like AVA, while over 56 developers mention "Test Runner" as the leading cause for choosing Karma.

AVA and Karma are both open source tools. AVA with 16.4K GitHub stars and 1.07K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Karma with 10.7K GitHub stars and 1.61K GitHub forks.

Sellsuki, Coderus, and Repro are some of the popular companies that use Karma, whereas AVA is used by Taboola, Becual.com, and Navendis. Karma has a broader approval, being mentioned in 119 company stacks & 57 developers stacks; compared to AVA, which is listed in 12 company stacks and 10 developer stacks.

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Detailed Comparison

Karma
Karma
AVA
AVA

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.

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.

Test on Real Devices;Remote Control;Testing Framework Agnostic;Open Source;Easy Debugging;Continuous Integration
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
12.0K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
1.7K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
4.8K
Stacks
105
Followers
603
Followers
205
Votes
181
Votes
32
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 61
    Test Runner
  • 35
    Open source
  • 27
    Continuous Integration
  • 22
    Great for running tests
  • 18
    Test on Real Devices
Cons
  • 1
    Slow, because tests are run in a real browser
  • 1
    Requires the use of hacks to find tests dynamically
Pros
  • 12
    Simple and fast
  • 6
    Parallel test running
  • 5
    Open source
  • 3
    Test code Instrumenting
  • 3
    Promise support
Cons
  • 1
    No built-in support for DOM
  • 1
    No source files compilation
Integrations
Jasmine
Jasmine
Mocha
Mocha
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Karma, AVA?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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