Overview

Mocha

Stacks10.8K

Followers3.0K

Votes430

SinonJS

Stacks3.5K

Followers38

Votes1

GitHub Stars9.8K

Forks774

Mocha vs SinonJS: What are the differences?

Mocha is a JavaScript testing framework that runs on Node.js, while SinonJS is a standalone JavaScript test spy, stub, and mocking library. The key differences between Mocha and SinonJS are as follows:

Testing Framework vs. Test Spy Library: Mocha is a testing framework that provides a set of utilities and APIs for writing and running tests, whereas SinonJS is a library specifically focused on providing test spies, stubs, and mocks.
Test Runner vs. Test Double Support: Mocha acts as a test runner and provides various features like test structure, test execution, reporting, and assertion libraries integration, while SinonJS focuses on providing support for test doubles such as spies, stubs, and mocks.
Test Lifecycle vs. Function Spying: Mocha has built-in support for test lifecycle hooks like before, after, beforeEach, and afterEach, which allow pre and post-test actions, while SinonJS offers powerful function spying capabilities, allowing you to verify how functions are being used.
Assertion Libraries Integration vs. Stubbing and Mocking: Mocha allows integration with multiple assertion libraries like Chai or Node.js's built-in assert module, providing a wide range of assertion styles and functionalities, whereas SinonJS focuses more on providing robust stubbing and mocking capabilities for controlling the behavior of functions in tests.
Test Runner Configuration vs. Isolation Testing: Mocha allows configuration of the test runner, including settings like timeouts, reporter selection, filter patterns, and more, while SinonJS focuses on enabling isolated testing by providing test doubles that help isolate the code under test from its external dependencies.
Flexible Test Suites vs. Standalone Library: Mocha provides flexibility in organizing test suites and tests by using various options like nested describe blocks, hooks, and test skipping, whereas SinonJS is a standalone library that can be used with any testing framework, allowing you to incorporate stubs, spies, and mocks in your tests regardless of the testing framework being used.

In Summary, Mocha is a testing framework with assertions and test runner capabilities, while SinonJS is a standalone library focused on providing test spies, stubs, and mocks for isolation testing.

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Advice on Mocha, SinonJS

Abigail

Dec 10, 2019

Decided

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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Comments

Detailed Comparison

Mocha	SinonJS
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.	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.
browser support;simple async support, including promises;test coverage reporting;string diff support;javascript API for running tests;proper exit status for CI support etc;auto-detects and disables coloring for non-ttys;maps uncaught exceptions to the correct test case;async test timeout support;test-specific timeouts;growl notification support;reports test durations;highlights slow tests;file watcher support;global variable leak detection	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 9.8K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 774
Stacks 10.8K	Stacks 3.5K
Followers 3.0K	Followers 38
Votes 430	Votes 1
Pros & Cons
Pros 137 Open source 102 Simple 81 Promise support 48 Flexible 29 Easy to add support for Generators Cons 3 Cannot test a promisified functions without assertion 2 No assertion count in results 1 Not as many reporter options as Jest	Pros 1 Open source Cons 1 More concepts than Jest 1 Less questions and answers on StackOverflow than Jest
Integrations
No integrations available	Node.js TypeScript

What are some alternatives to Mocha, SinonJS?

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.

Jest

Jest provides you with multiple layers on top of Jasmine.

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.

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.

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

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.

Ghost Inspector

It lets you create and manage UI tests that check specific functionality in your website or application. We execute these automated browser tests continuously from the cloud and alert you if anything breaks.

QUnit

QUnit is a powerful, easy-to-use JavaScript unit testing framework. It's used by the jQuery, jQuery UI and jQuery Mobile projects and is capable of testing any generic JavaScript code, including itself!