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Protractor vs SuperTest: What are the differences?

Protractor: End-to-end test framework for Angular and AngularJS applications. 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; SuperTest: *A library for testing node.js HTTP servers *. It is a super-agent driven library for testing node.js HTTP servers using a fluent API. It provides a high-level abstraction for testing HTTP, while still allowing you to drop down to the lower-level API provided by superagent.

Protractor and SuperTest belong to "Javascript Testing Framework" category of the tech stack.

Protractor and SuperTest are both open source tools. It seems that SuperTest with 8.8K GitHub stars and 568 forks on GitHub has more adoption than Protractor with 8.28K GitHub stars and 2.26K GitHub forks.

PeopleKeep, Omaze, and Garlic Tech Ltd are some of the popular companies that use Protractor, whereas SuperTest is used by FASHION CLOUD, I Need to Talk, and Brainhub. Protractor has a broader approval, being mentioned in 40 company stacks & 101 developers stacks; compared to SuperTest, which is listed in 6 company stacks and 7 developer stacks.

Advice on Protractor and SuperTest
Yildiz Dila
testmanager/automation tester at medicalservice · | 5 upvotes · 259.6K 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 · 158.7K 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 · 187.5K 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 Protractor
Pros of SuperTest
  • 9
    Easy setup
  • 8
    Quick tests implementation
  • 6
    Flexible
  • 5
    Open source
  • 5
    Promise support
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    Cons of Protractor
    Cons of SuperTest
    • 4
      Limited
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      - No public GitHub repository available -

      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.

      What is SuperTest?

      It is a super-agent driven library for testing node.js HTTP servers using a fluent API. It provides a high-level abstraction for testing HTTP, while still allowing you to drop down to the lower-level API provided by superagent.

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

      What companies use Protractor?
      What companies use SuperTest?
      See which teams inside your own company are using Protractor or SuperTest.
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      What tools integrate with Protractor?
      What tools integrate with SuperTest?
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        What are some alternatives to Protractor and SuperTest?
        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.
        PhantomJS
        PhantomJS is a headless WebKit scriptable with JavaScript. It is used by hundreds of developers and dozens of organizations for web-related development workflow.
        WebdriverIO
        WebdriverIO lets you control a browser or a mobile application with just a few lines of code. Your test code will look simple, concise and easy to read.
        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.
        Compass
        The compass core framework is a design-agnostic framework that provides common code that would otherwise be duplicated across other frameworks and extensions.
        See all alternatives