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

Behat

https://docs.behat.org/en/latest/

Specter

http://specter.sourceforge.net/
Programming language

PHP

.NET

Category

Functional/Acceptance Testing

Acceptance 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

Specter is a behaviour-driven development framework for .NET and Mono

Specter enables behavior driven development (BDD) by allowing developers to write executable specifications for their objects, before actually implementing them, this is similar to test driven development however the different nomenclature makes it different from writing 'tests' for code that does not exist yet
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

Developers can create specfications of the expected front-end behaviours and test them
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

Yes developers can create specfications of the expected back-end behaviours and test these.
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.

N/A

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

N/A

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

N/A

Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

MIT License

BSD 3-Clause 'New' or 'Revised' License

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

N/A

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

You can create your own test suites with specter
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework