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AVA vs Protractor: What are the differences?
<h1>Key Differences between AVA and Protractor</h1>
<p>When it comes to automated testing frameworks, AVA and Protractor are two popular choices within the development community. Let's explore the key differences between these two tools.</p>
1. <b>Test Environments:</b> AVA runs tests concurrently, providing faster test execution, while Protractor runs tests sequentially, which may be slower in comparison.
2. <b>Programming Language:</b> AVA is specifically targeted towards testing JavaScript code, making it suitable for projects built on Node.js, while Protractor is designed for testing Angular applications.
3. <b>Asynchronous Testing:</b> AVA utilizes asynchronous testing by default, allowing faster and more efficient testing of asynchronous code, whereas Protractor provides built-in support for handling Angular's asynchronous behavior.
4. <b>User Interface Testing:</b> Protractor includes features specifically tailored for end-to-end testing of Angular applications, such as automatic synchronization with Angular elements, while AVA focuses more on general JavaScript testing.
5. <b>Community Support:</b> Protractor has a larger user base and extensive documentation, making it easier to troubleshoot issues and find resources online, while AVA may have a smaller community but is known for its simplicity and ease of use.
6. <b>Integration with CI/CD:</b> Protractor offers seamless integration with popular CI/CD tools such as Jenkins and Travis CI, facilitating continuous testing and deployment workflows, whereas AVA may require additional configuration for integration with certain CI/CD pipelines.
In Summary, AVA and Protractor offer distinct advantages based on the specific testing requirements and project environments, with AVA excelling in speed and simplicity for JavaScript testing, while Protractor is tailored for Angular application testing with robust community support.
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...
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
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
Pros of AVA
- Simple and fast12
- Parallel test running6
- Open source5
- Promise support3
- Test code Instrumenting3
- Babel integration2
- ESM Ready1
Pros of Protractor
- Easy setup9
- Quick tests implementation8
- Flexible6
- Open source5
- Promise support5
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Cons of AVA
- No built-in support for DOM1
- No source files compilation1
Cons of Protractor
- Limited4