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AVA vs Nose comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between AVA and Nose?

AVA

https://github.com/avajs/ava

Nose

https://nose.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Programming language

JavaScript

Python

Category

Unit Testing, Intergration Testing

Unit Testing, unittest Extensions

General info

Futuristic, new, fast and concurrent JavaScript test runner with simple test syntax

AVA is a test runner for Node.js with a concise API, detailed error output. JS is a single-threaded but Node.JS is a parallel due to it's async behaviour. Ava leverages that and it can run tests concurrently

Nose is a Python unit test framework

This is a Python unit test framework that intergrates well with doctests, unnittests, and 'no-boilerplate tests', that is tests written from scratch without a specific boilerplate.
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

No

However Ava supports the TAP format which allows us to use the tap-xunit reporter to produce xUnit (JUnit) XML

No

Client-side
Allows testing code execution on the client, such as a web browser

Yes

You can write tests for the DOM with Ava, testing front-end components is easy with Ava

Yes

nose is a unit testing tool which is very similar to unittest. It is basically unittest with extensions therefore just like unittest is can test front-end components and behaviour
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

Ava utilizes the async I/O nature of Node and runs concurrent tests on NodeJs applications' back-endsA node server can have its endpoints tested with Ava

Yes

Nose can test back-end components and functionality as small units. One can write tests for each function that provides back-end functionality
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

Yes

Using Ava's ava-fixture library it supports fixtures

Yes

nose supports fixtures at the package, module, class, and test case levels, so that initialization which can be expensive is done as infrequently as possible.
Group fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data for a group of tests (group-fixtures). This ensures specific environment for a given group of tests.

Yes

Ava has support for group fixtures

Yes

Group fixtures are allowed with nose, where a multitest state can be defined.
Generators
Supports data generators for tests. Data generators generate input data for test. The test is then run for each input data produced in this way.

N/A

Through use of third party libraries like test-generator and from the 'unittest.TestCase' library
Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

MIT License

GNU Library or Lesser General Public License (LGPL) (GNU LGPL)

Mocks
Mocks are objects that simulate the behavior of real objects. Using mocks allows testing some part of the code in isolation (with other parts mocked when needed)

AVA has no mocking built in, to mock functions you can use third party libraries like Sinon.js.

Yes

The nose library extends the built-in Python unittest module therefore has access to unittest.mock
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

No

There is no support for grouping tests

Yes

With nose it collects tests automatically and there’s no need to manually collect test cases into test suites.
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework