Cucumber vs Mockito: What are the differences?

Cucumber and Mockito are two popular testing frameworks in the software development industry. Both frameworks are used for different purposes and have distinct features that set them apart from each other.

1. Behavior-Driven Development: Cucumber is primarily designed for Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) testing. It allows the creation of test scenarios using natural language, making it more readable and understandable for non-technical stakeholders. On the other hand, Mockito is primarily used for unit testing and focuses on isolating the behavior of an object or method during testing.

2. Test Implementation: When using Cucumber, tests are written in feature files using Gherkin syntax. These feature files contain a combination of plain English and keywords that represent test steps. In contrast, Mockito does not employ natural language test specifications. It allows developers to write test cases directly in code using Mockito API.

3. Test Scope: Cucumber is often used to test user acceptance and integration scenarios, as it can handle end-to-end testing in a more user-friendly manner. Conversely, Mockito is mainly used for testing isolated units of code, such as individual methods or classes, without having to rely on complex external dependencies.

4. Collaboration and Communication: Cucumber promotes collaboration between non-technical and technical stakeholders by providing a shared language for describing and understanding product behavior. It serves as a bridge between the business and development teams. Mockito, however, focuses more on technical aspects by providing a flexible and powerful mocking framework for creating realistic test environments.

5. Integration with Other Tools: Cucumber can integrate with various tools like Selenium for browser automation, which makes it suitable for testing web applications. Mockito, on the other hand, integrates well with popular testing frameworks such as JUnit and TestNG, allowing seamless test execution and result reporting.

6. Test Double Usages: Cucumber does not offer built-in support for test doubles like mocks and stubs. It focuses more on the interaction of end-to-end scenarios. In contrast, Mockito specializes in creating mock objects, stubs, and spies, making it ideal for mocking dependencies and testing isolated units of code.

In Summary, Cucumber is a BDD testing framework that emphasizes readable and understandable test scenarios using natural language, while Mockito is a framework for unit testing that allows isolation of code behavior using mocks and stubs.