We are progressing towards an era of automation. Every company, be a startup or a large-scale enterprise, they are all striving to incorporate automation testing in their release cycles as efficiently as they can. Reason being, simply because automation testing drastically reduces the effort involved in validating repetitive test scenarios. JavaScript is no more referred to as a developer-only programming language. With the increasing demand for automation testing, JavaScript testing frameworks have emerged for fulfilling different purposes, some are fit for unit testing, while others are made for E2E(End-to-End) testing. It is no wonder that automation testers throughout the globe have become pretty fond of these JavaScript automation testing frameworks.
The variety of JavaScript automation testing frameworks made available for automation testers have become a cause of confusion for many. It is only natural, the more options you have in front of you, the more time it will take for you to decide which JavaScript automation testing framework fits the best for you.
Don’t worry though! I am going to highlight the top 8 JavaScript automation testing frameworks that make testing easier based upon your testing requirements. You can also read our other blog on Top JavaScript frameworks for 2019 where we have talked about front-end, back-end, and testing suitable frameworks.
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1. Jest
• Rated as number #1 JavaScript automation testing framework for
2018 by the stateofjs survey.
• Jest was developed by Facebook and used to test JavaScript
codes, especially applications developed using React JS.
• The biggest benefit of using Jest is the out of the box experience
of minimal configuration and setup since it comes with a mocking
support an assertion library. Just like any new testing libraries,
the test cases are written using the behavior-driven development
approach.
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2. Mocha
• Mocha is a JavaScript-based automated test framework meant for
testing applications that run using Node.js.
• Mocha is rated as #2 JavaScript automation testing framework for
stateofjs survey of 2018.
• The application is open source and allows flexibility.
• Since it is old, lots of tutorial and documents are available online.
• Mocha helps you to easily map exceptions with the relevant test
cases.
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3. Jasmine
• Jasmine, mostly used for asynchronous testing is a feature-rich
JavaScript automation testing framework for JavaScript.
• The application runs on Node.js and allows accurate and flexible
bug reporting by serially running the test cases.
• The biggest strength of Jasmine is its compatibility across every
framework or libraries of your choice, making it one of the most
flexible JavaScript testing frameworks.
• The community of Jasmine is quite large and you will get all kinds
of support which come in the form of libraries, blog posts or video
tutorials.
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4. Nightwatch
• Nightwatch is a powerful Automation Testing Framework that uses
Selenium WebDriver API and allows the user to perform end to end
testing.
• The primary objective of Nightwatch is to simplify the process of
writing automated test cases and helping to set up continuous
integration in your development cycle.
• First of all, the setup is quite easy, You will only need to import
the Selenium library.
• The language is very simple. You will only need a basic knowledge
of object-oriented programming.
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5. Protractor
• It is an end to end automation testing framework dedicated for
testing your angular application in a real browser, making
automated interaction just like a real user.
• Since the framework runs over Selenium WebDriver it makes cross-
browser testing easier. All the basic functionalities of WebDriver is
supported by Protractor.
• Compared to Selenium WebDriver, you will have additional
locators like repeater, model, binding and many more.
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6. Selenium Webdriver
• You can use Selenium for performing automated cross browser
testing in a thorough manner. Not only can you use Selenium to
perform automation testing with JavaScript, but you can also use
it for other programming languages too.
• Being in the industry for a long time, the community of Selenium
is quite huge and for any help or query, the community is always
there to resolve your problem.
• For utilizing the complete feature of Selenium, you will require
any third-party plugins.
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7. Puppeteer(Library)
• Puppeteer is another Node.js based automated testing library
which provides an API that helps the users to control Chrome by
overriding the standard DevTools protocol.
• Many scenarios which can be done manually in the browser can be
automated with the help of Puppeteer.
• Puppeteer allows the users to mock resources, thereby avoiding
reliability, consistency and speed issues.
• You can manipulate external resources like CSS selectors to make
your specific test case execute faster.
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8. Karma(Test Runner)
• Karma was developed to bring a testing environment to
developers. An environment where they have to worry less about
configuration. They can only write code and get feedback
instantly from the test cases.
• Karma helps you to easily perform automation testing on real
devices and browsers. You can run the test cases on tablets,
phones or event on a PhantomJS like headless instance.
• You can control the entire workflow directly from your IDE or
CMD. You only need to save a file and the framework will run the
test cases for you.