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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Testing Frameworks
  4. Javascript Testing Framework
  5. Detox vs Jest

Detox vs Jest

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Jest
Jest
Stacks15.2K
Followers4.1K
Votes175
Detox
Detox
Stacks137
Followers95
Votes9
GitHub Stars11.7K
Forks1.9K

Detox vs Jest: What are the differences?

Detox vs Jest: Key Differences

Detox and Jest are both popular testing frameworks used in the field of software development. However, there are several key differences between these two frameworks that developers should be aware of when considering which one to use for their testing needs.

  1. Testing Paradigm: Detox is primarily focused on end-to-end testing, which involves simulating user interactions and testing the entire app flow. On the other hand, Jest is a more general-purpose testing framework that can be used for unit testing, integration testing, and snapshot testing.

  2. Platform Support: Detox is designed specifically for mobile app testing and supports iOS and Android platforms. Jest, on the other hand, can be used for testing JavaScript code in a wide range of environments, including web applications, mobile apps (via React Native), and Node.js.

  3. Assertion Libraries: Detox uses the Jasmine assertion library by default, which provides a rich set of matchers for writing test assertions. Jest, on the other hand, has its own built-in assertion library and also supports popular libraries like Chai and Enzyme.

  4. Parallel Testing: Detox has built-in support for running tests in parallel on multiple devices simultaneously, which can significantly reduce the overall testing time. Jest also supports parallel test execution to some extent, but it requires additional configuration and setup.

  5. Mocking and Test Doubles: Jest provides powerful mocking capabilities, allowing developers to easily create mock versions of dependencies and control their behavior during testing. Detox, on the other hand, does not have built-in support for mocking, but it can be integrated with libraries like Jest to achieve similar functionality.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Jest has a larger and more mature community compared to Detox, which means that developers can find more resources, tutorials, and community support when using Jest. Detox, being a specialized framework, has a smaller community but is still actively maintained and has a growing ecosystem.

In summary, Detox and Jest differ in their testing paradigm, platform support, assertion libraries, parallel testing capabilities, mocking capabilities, and community size. Developers should consider these differences based on their specific testing requirements and choose the framework that best suits their needs.

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Advice on Jest, Detox

Dane
Dane

Feb 7, 2020

Needs adviceonCypressCypressJestJest

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.

836k views836k
Comments
Anonymous
Anonymous

Feb 6, 2020

Needs advice

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.

290k views290k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Jest
Jest
Detox
Detox

Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.

High velocity native mobile development requires us to adopt continuous integration workflows, which means our reliance on manual QA has to drop significantly. It tests your mobile app while it's running in a real device/simulator, interacting with it just like a real user.

Familiar Approach: Built on top of the Jasmine test framework, using familiar expect(value).toBe(other) assertions;Mock by Default: Automatically mocks CommonJS modules returned by require(), making most existing code testable;Short Feedback Loop: DOM APIs are mocked and tests run in parallel via a small node.js command line utility
Automatically Synchronized; Test Runner Independent; Debuggable
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
11.7K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
1.9K
Stacks
15.2K
Stacks
137
Followers
4.1K
Followers
95
Votes
175
Votes
9
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 36
    Open source
  • 32
    Mock by default makes testing much simpler
  • 23
    Testing React Native Apps
  • 20
    Parallel test running
  • 16
    Fast
Cons
  • 4
    Ambiguous configuration
  • 4
    Documentation
  • 3
    Difficult
  • 2
    Ambiguous
  • 2
    Many bugs still not fixed months/years after reporting
Pros
  • 6
    Grey box testing
  • 3
    Automated testing
Integrations
No integrations available
JavaScript
JavaScript
React Native
React Native
macOS
macOS

What are some alternatives to Jest, Detox?

Mocha

Mocha

Mocha is a feature-rich JavaScript test framework running on node.js and the browser, making asynchronous testing simple and fun. Mocha tests run serially, allowing for flexible and accurate reporting, while mapping uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases.

Jasmine

Jasmine

Jasmine is a Behavior Driven Development testing framework for JavaScript. It does not rely on browsers, DOM, or any JavaScript framework. Thus it's suited for websites, Node.js projects, or anywhere that JavaScript can run.

Robot Framework

Robot Framework

It is a generic test automation framework for acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development. It has easy-to-use tabular test data syntax and it utilizes the keyword-driven testing approach. Its testing capabilities can be extended by test libraries implemented either with Python or Java, and users can create new higher-level keywords from existing ones using the same syntax that is used for creating test cases.

Cypress

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.

Karate DSL

Karate DSL

Combines API test-automation, mocks and performance-testing into a single, unified framework. The BDD syntax popularized by Cucumber is language-neutral, and easy for even non-programmers. Besides powerful JSON & XML assertions, you can run tests in parallel for speed - which is critical for HTTP API testing.

CodeceptJS

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.

Cucumber

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.

Protractor

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.

AVA

AVA

Even though JavaScript is single-threaded, IO in Node.js can happen in parallel due to its async nature. AVA takes advantage of this and runs your tests concurrently, which is especially beneficial for IO heavy tests. In addition, test files are run in parallel as separate processes, giving you even better performance and an isolated environment for each test file.

TestCafe

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.

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