Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

CodeceptJS

103
217
+ 1
52
Jest

10K
4.1K
+ 1
175
Add tool

CodeceptJS vs Jest: What are the differences?

Introduction:

CodeceptJS and Jest are both popular testing frameworks used in JavaScript development. While they have similarities, there are some key differences between the two. Let's explore these differences in detail below.

  1. Applicability in Different Testing Scenarios: CodeceptJS is primarily designed for end-to-end testing and supports various testing types like UI, API, unit, and acceptance testing. On the other hand, Jest is more focused on unit testing and provides tools and features specifically tailored for that purpose.

  2. Testing Approach: CodeceptJS follows a behavior-driven development (BDD) approach, where tests are written in a human-readable format using the Gherkin syntax. This makes it easier for non-technical stakeholders to understand the tests. In contrast, Jest follows a more traditional test-driven development (TDD) approach, where tests are written in JavaScript code.

  3. Test Runner and Assertion Library: CodeceptJS uses popular test runners like Mocha or Cucumber.js and assertion libraries like Chai or WebdriverIO's expect to write tests. Jest, on the other hand, comes with its own built-in test runner and assertion library, making it a self-contained solution without the need for additional dependencies.

  4. Mocking and Spying: Jest provides built-in mocking and spying capabilities, allowing developers to easily mock dependencies and spy on function calls. CodeceptJS, on the other hand, requires additional libraries like sinon or Jest's mocking library to achieve similar functionality.

  5. Parallel Execution: CodeceptJS supports parallel test execution out of the box, which can significantly reduce the overall test execution time. Jest also supports parallel execution, but it requires additional configuration and setup.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Jest has a larger and more active community, with a wide range of plugins and integrations available, making it easier to find support and resources. CodeceptJS, although also having a supportive community, is comparatively smaller and has a more focused scope.

In summary, CodeceptJS focuses on end-to-end testing and supports various testing types, follows BDD approach, uses external test runners and assertion libraries, requires additional libraries for mocking and spying, supports parallel execution, and has a smaller community. Jest, on the other hand, is more focused on unit testing, follows a TDD approach, comes with its own test runner and assertion library, provides built-in mocking and spying capabilities, supports parallel execution, and has a larger community with a broader ecosystem.

Decisions about CodeceptJS and Jest
Shared insights
on
CypressCypressJestJest

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.

See more

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.

See more
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More
Pros of CodeceptJS
Pros of Jest
  • 10
    Readability
  • 9
    Full browser control
  • 9
    Cross browser support
  • 8
    Open source
  • 6
    Community
  • 5
    Flexible Driver
  • 3
    Great documentation
  • 2
    Agnostic
  • 36
    Open source
  • 32
    Mock by default makes testing much simpler
  • 23
    Testing React Native Apps
  • 20
    Parallel test running
  • 16
    Fast
  • 13
    Bundled with JSDOM to enable DOM testing
  • 8
    Mock by default screws up your classes, breaking tests
  • 7
    Out of the box code coverage
  • 7
    Promise support
  • 6
    One stop shop for unit testing
  • 3
    Great documentation
  • 2
    Assert Library Included
  • 1
    Built in watch option with interactive filtering menu
  • 1
    Preset support
  • 0
    Can be used for BDD
  • 0
    Karma

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of CodeceptJS
Cons of Jest
  • 2
    Small community
  • 1
    Not a framework by itself
  • 4
    Documentation
  • 4
    Ambiguous configuration
  • 3
    Difficult
  • 2
    Many bugs still not fixed months/years after reporting
  • 2
    Multiple error messages for same error
  • 2
    Difficult to run single test/describe/file
  • 2
    Ambiguous
  • 2
    Bugged
  • 1
    BeforeAll timing out makes all passing tests fail
  • 1
    Slow
  • 1
    Reporter is too general
  • 1
    Unstable
  • 1
    Bad docs
  • 1
    Still does't support .mjs files natively
  • 1
    Can't fail beforeAll to abort tests
  • 0
    Interaction with watch mode on terminal

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is 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.

What is Jest?

Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use CodeceptJS?
What companies use Jest?
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with CodeceptJS?
What tools integrate with Jest?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

Blog Posts

What are some alternatives to CodeceptJS and Jest?
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.
Codeception
Full-stack testing framework for PHP. Run browsers tests, framework tests, APIs tests, unit tests with ease.
TestCafe
It is a pure node.js end-to-end solution for testing web apps. It takes care of all the stages: starting browsers, running tests, gathering test results and generating reports.
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 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.
See all alternatives