Behat vs SimpleTest comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between Behat and SimpleTest?

	Behat https://docs.behat.org/en/latest/	SimpleTest https://github.com/simpletest/simpletest
Programming language	PHP	PHP
Category	Functional/Acceptance Testing	Unit Testing, Web Testing
General info	Behat is an open source Behavior-Driven Development framework for PHP. Behat uses the StoryBDD subtype of behaviour-driven development (the other subtype is SpecBDD); This means the tests we write with Behat look rather like stories than code. It is inspired by Ruby's Cucumber	SimpleTest is a unit test and web test framework for PHP It has JWebUnit style functionality and support for SSL, forms, frames, proxies and basic authentication
xUnit Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.	No	No
Client-side Allows testing code execution on the client, such as a web browser	Yes To enable Behat to test a website, you need to add Mink and a browser emulator (selenium maybe, though slow) to the mix. Mink methods are the connector between Behat and an extensive list of available drivers, and they provide a consistent testing API.	Yes With SimpleTest common but fiddly PHP tasks, such as logging into a site, can be tested easily
Server-side Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code	Yes Behat can be used for Data Integrity Testing to verify that database operations are functioning properly	Yes Server-side behaviour can be tested by writing simple unit tests to test functionality and behaviour of single components.
Fixtures Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test	Yes One can use the 'Doctrinefixturesbundle' to create the required fixture loaders and load them in our Behat scenarios when required, using the 'BeforeScenario' hook.	Yes It can import fixtures using a mixin like 'given()' method
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 Behat allows for group fixtures	Yes It allows grouping of fixtures
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.	By use of third party libraries like moodle-behat-generators	Yes Simpletest has support for generators
Licence Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software	MIT License	GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
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)	By using third party libraries like Mock and Prophecy	Yes It allows for one to build Mock objects.To create a mock version of a class we need to include the mock object library and run the generator. This will create a clone class which we use to create new instances(objects) in our test cases.
Grouping Allows organizing tests in groups	Yes You can use tags to group features and scenarios together, independent of your file and directory structure	Yes There are several ways of grouping tests; one is to simply place multiple test cases into a single file, another is to mark any base test cases that should not be run as abstract, Simpletest gives you a couple of options
Other Other useful information about the testing framework