Knapsack Pro

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

Behat

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

stestr

https://pypi.org/project/stestr/
Programming language

PHP

Python

Category

Functional/Acceptance Testing

Unit 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

stestr is a Python test runner designed to execute unittest test suites

stestr executes unittest test suites by using multiple processes to split up execution of a test suite then stores a history of all test runs to help in debugging failures and optimizing the scheduler to improve speed.
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

Stestr being a test runner that runs unittest tests, it can test fron-tend functionality and behaviour.
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

Stestr being a test runner that runs unittest tests, it can run back-end tests for functionality and behaviour.
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

By use of a third party library like Fixture
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

By use of a third party library like Fixture
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

By using a library like test-generator
Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

MIT License

Apache License 2.0

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

N/A

Other
Other useful information about the testing framework