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Jasmine

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Mocha

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Jasmine vs Jest vs Mocha: What are the differences?

Introduction

Jasmine, Jest, and Mocha are popular JavaScript testing frameworks used for testing JavaScript code. While they have similarities, there are key differences between them in terms of features and functionality.

  1. Testing Framework Design and Syntax: Jasmine is a behavior-driven development (BDD) testing framework with a clean and descriptive syntax, making it easy to read and write tests. On the other hand, Jest is a testing framework developed by Facebook, known for its simplicity and ease of use. It focuses on providing a zero-configuration experience and comes with built-in mocking capabilities. Mocha, on the other hand, is a flexible testing framework that allows developers to choose their preferred assertion library, making it highly customizable.

  2. Asynchronous Testing: A major difference between these frameworks lies in their approach to handling asynchronous code. Jasmine uses a callback-based approach for handling asynchronous code, which can often lead to nested and complex test code. Jest, on the other hand, provides built-in support for handling async/await and promises, making it easier to write and understand asynchronous tests. Mocha is similar to Jasmine and also relies on callback-based functions for handling asynchronous code.

  3. Mocking and Spies: Another important difference lies in the mocking and spying capabilities of these frameworks. Jasmine provides a built-in mocking functionality, allowing developers to create test doubles or mock objects. It also provides spies that can track the calls made to a function. Jest, on the other hand, comes with powerful built-in mocking capabilities, allowing developers to easily mock functions and modules. It also provides spies, similar to Jasmine. Mocha, however, does not provide built-in mocking or spying features, but it can be easily extended using libraries like Sinon.js for this functionality.

  4. Performance and Speed: Performance and speed can also vary among these frameworks. Jest is known for its optimized test runner that parallelizes test execution, speeding up the overall test execution time. It also utilizes a clever caching mechanism to provide faster feedback on subsequent test runs. Jasmine, on the other hand, may suffer from slower test execution times, especially in larger test suites. Mocha is generally fast and performs well, but it does not have the parallel execution capabilities provided by Jest.

  5. Ecosystem and Community Support: The popularity and community support for a testing framework are important factors to consider. Jasmine has been around for a longer time and has a larger community, which means there is a wealth of resources and plugins available. Jest, being developed by Facebook, also has a strong community and is actively maintained. Mocha, although not backed by a specific company, has a large user base and extensive community support, making it a popular choice with a vast ecosystem of plugins and libraries.

  6. Configuration and Setup: The ease of setup and configuration can also differ among these frameworks. Jasmine and Mocha have a simpler setup and configuration process, with Mocha relying on a simple JavaScript file for configuration. Jest, however, provides a zero-configuration experience, meaning it comes with a pre-set configuration that works out of the box. This can be helpful for developers who prefer less configuration and want to start testing quickly.

In summary, Jasmine, Jest, and Mocha have distinct differences in their design, asynchronous testing capabilities, mocking and spying features, performance, ecosystem and community support, and configuration and setup processes. These differences make each framework suitable for different use cases and developer preferences.

Decisions about Jasmine, Jest, and Mocha
Ben Herbert
Lead Front End Developer at Crunch · | 4 upvotes · 43.9K views

We were able to combine multiple tools with Jest and React Testing Library (e.g. sinon, enzyme, chai). Jest has powerful cli options and increased performance including from parallel testing processes. Migrating was reasonably straight forward as there is a code transformation script to do most of the leg work. Jest's documentation is excellent.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Pros of Jasmine
Pros of Jest
Pros of Mocha
  • 64
    Can also be used for tdd
  • 49
    Open source
  • 18
    Originally from RSpec
  • 15
    Great community
  • 14
    No dependencies, not even DOM
  • 10
    Easy to setup
  • 8
    Simple
  • 3
    Created by Pivotal-Labs
  • 2
    Works with KarmaJs
  • 1
    Jasmine is faster than selenium in angular application
  • 1
    SpyOn to fake calls
  • 1
    Async and promises are easy calls with "done"
  • 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
  • 137
    Open source
  • 102
    Simple
  • 81
    Promise support
  • 48
    Flexible
  • 29
    Easy to add support for Generators
  • 12
    For browser and server testing
  • 7
    Curstom assertion libraries
  • 5
    Works with Karma
  • 3
    No other better tools
  • 1
    Simple setup
  • 1
    Works with saucelabs
  • 1
    Lots of tutorials and help online
  • 1
    Default reporter is nice, clean, and itemized
  • 1
    Works with BrowserStack
  • 1
    Simple integration testing

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Cons of Jasmine
Cons of Jest
Cons of Mocha
  • 2
    Unfriendly error logs
  • 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
  • 3
    Cannot test a promisified functions without assertion
  • 2
    No assertion count in results
  • 1
    Not as many reporter options as Jest

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What is 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.

What is Jest?

Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.

What is 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.

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What are some alternatives to Jasmine, Jest, and Mocha?
Karma
Karma is not a testing framework, nor an assertion library. Karma just launches a HTTP server, and generates the test runner HTML file you probably already know from your favourite testing framework. So for testing purposes you can use pretty much anything you like.
Chai
It is a BDD / TDD assertion library for node and the browser that can be delightfully paired with any javascript testing framework. It has several interfaces that allow the developer to choose the most comfortable. The chain-capable BDD styles provide an expressive language & readable style, while the TDD assert style provides a more classical feel.
SinonJS
It is a really helpful library when you want to unit test your code. It supports spies, stubs, and mocks. The library has cross browser support and also can run on the server using Node.js.
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.
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.
See all alternatives