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Cucumber vs Protractor: What are the differences?

  1. Dependency: Cucumber relies on Gherkin syntax for writing tests, while Protractor utilizes Jasmine or Mocha for writing tests.
  2. Testing Framework: Cucumber is primarily used for behavior-driven development (BDD) testing, whereas Protractor is designed for end-to-end (E2E) testing of AngularJS applications.
  3. Language Support: Cucumber supports a variety of programming languages such as Ruby, Java, and JavaScript, whereas Protractor specifically supports JavaScript for test scripting.
  4. Documentation: Cucumber provides clear and readable documentation through its feature files, scenarios, and step definitions, whereas Protractor's documentation may not be as extensive or user-friendly.
  5. Parallel Testing: Protractor has built-in support for running tests in parallel, which can significantly reduce test execution time, while Cucumber may require additional tools or configurations for achieving parallel testing.
  6. Community Support: Cucumber has a strong community support and resources available online, making it easier for new users to learn and troubleshoot issues, whereas Protractor's community may not be as vast or active.

In Summary, Cucumber and Protractor differ in dependency, testing framework, language support, documentation, parallel testing, and community support.

Advice on Cucumber and Protractor
Yildiz Dila
testmanager/automation tester at medicalservice · | 5 upvotes · 276K views
Needs advice
on
CypressCypress
and
ProtractorProtractor

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...

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Replies (2)
Kevin Emery
QE Systems Engineer at Discovery, Inc. · | 4 upvotes · 170.4K views
Recommends
on
CypressCypressProtractorProtractor

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

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Jian Wang
Web Engineer at sentaca · | 1 upvotes · 199.2K views
Recommends

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

https://github.com/newlifewj/handow

http://demo.shm.handow.org/reports

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Pros of Cucumber
Pros of Protractor
  • 20
    Simple Syntax
  • 8
    Simple usage
  • 5
    Huge community
  • 3
    Nice report
  • 9
    Easy setup
  • 8
    Quick tests implementation
  • 6
    Flexible
  • 5
    Open source
  • 5
    Promise support

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Cons of Cucumber
Cons of Protractor
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 4
      Limited

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Cucumber?

    Cucumber is a tool that supports Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) - a software development process that aims to enhance software quality and reduce maintenance costs.

    What is 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.

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

    What companies use Cucumber?
    What companies use Protractor?
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    What tools integrate with Cucumber?
    What tools integrate with Protractor?

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    What are some alternatives to Cucumber and Protractor?
    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.
    RSpec
    Behaviour Driven Development for Ruby. Making TDD Productive and Fun.
    TestNG
    It is a testing framework designed to simplify a broad range of testing needs, it covers all categories of tests: unit, functional, end-to-end, integration, etc.Run your tests in arbitrarily big thread pools with various policies available (all methods in their own thread, one thread per test class, etc.
    JUnit
    JUnit is a simple framework to write repeatable tests. It is an instance of the xUnit architecture for unit testing frameworks.
    Celery
    Celery is an asynchronous task queue/job queue based on distributed message passing. It is focused on real-time operation, but supports scheduling as well.
    See all alternatives