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Cypress vs Mocha: What are the differences?
Cypress and Mocha are two popular testing frameworks used for testing web applications. While both frameworks serve the purpose of testing, there are several key differences between them. Here are the top six differences:
Integration and End-to-End Testing: Cypress is a complete end-to-end testing framework, providing all the necessary tools to test your application from start to finish. It includes features like DOM manipulation, network stubbing, and interactive debugging. On the other hand, Mocha is primarily a testing framework that focuses on unit testing. It provides a test runner and assertion library, but lacks built-in tools for end-to-end testing.
Syntax and Test Structure: Cypress uses a JavaScript-like syntax for writing tests. It provides a globally accessible
cy
object that allows you to interact with and control your application in the testing environment. Mocha, on the other hand, uses a more traditional approach with a simple and flexible syntax. It allows you to structure your tests using thedescribe()
andit()
functions, making it easier to organize and categorize your tests.Direct Control vs. Abstraction: With Cypress, you have direct control over your application's environment during testing. You can easily stub network requests, manipulate the DOM, and interact with the application in real-time. Mocha, on the other hand, relies on external libraries like Chai and Sinon for handling assertions and stubbing. This provides a level of abstraction, but also means you need to include and configure additional dependencies.
Browser Support: Cypress is designed to work exclusively with Chrome and Electron. It provides a custom browser that runs your tests, allowing for deep integration and faster test execution. Mocha, on the other hand, is agnostic to the test environment and can run in any browser that supports JavaScript. It does not provide any built-in features for specific browsers.
Out-of-the-Box Features: Cypress comes with several built-in features that make testing easier, such as automatic waiting and retrying of assertions, time-travel debugging, and a user-friendly dashboard for viewing and analyzing test results. Mocha, on the other hand, focuses more on being a lightweight and minimalistic framework. It provides a solid foundation for running tests, but you need to rely on additional libraries for advanced features.
Learning Curve: Due to its comprehensive feature set, Cypress has a steeper learning curve compared to Mocha. It introduces new concepts and approaches to testing that might require additional time and effort to grasp. Mocha, being a lighter framework, has a shorter learning curve as it follows more traditional testing patterns and is easier to understand for developers familiar with JavaScript testing.
In summary, Cypress is a powerful end-to-end testing framework with extensive features and direct control over test environments, while Mocha is a lightweight testing framework focused on unit testing with a more traditional syntax and broader browser 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
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.
We use Mocha for our FDA verification testing. It's integrated into Meteor, our upstream web application framework. We like how battle tested it is, its' syntax, its' options of reporters, and countless other features. Most everybody can agree on mocha, and that gets us half-way through our FDA verification and validation (V&V) testing strategy.
Pros of Cypress
- Open source29
- Great documentation22
- Simple usage20
- Fast18
- Cross Browser testing10
- Easy us with CI9
- Npm install cypress only5
- Good for beginner automation engineers2
Pros of Mocha
- Open source137
- Simple102
- Promise support81
- Flexible48
- Easy to add support for Generators29
- For browser and server testing12
- Curstom assertion libraries7
- Works with Karma5
- No other better tools3
- Simple setup1
- Works with saucelabs1
- Lots of tutorials and help online1
- Default reporter is nice, clean, and itemized1
- Works with BrowserStack1
- Simple integration testing1
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Cons of Cypress
- Cypress is weak at cross-browser testing21
- Switch tabs : Cypress can'nt support14
- No iFrame support12
- No page object support9
- No multiple domain support9
- No file upload support8
- No support for multiple tab control8
- No xPath support8
- No support for Safari7
- Cypress doesn't support native app7
- Re-run failed tests retries not supported yet7
- No support for multiple browser control7
- $20/user/thread for reports5
- Adobe4
- Using a non-standard automation protocol4
- Not freeware4
- No 'WD wire protocol' support3
Cons of Mocha
- Cannot test a promisified functions without assertion3
- No assertion count in results2
- Not as many reporter options as Jest1