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

Cucumber

https://github.com/cucumber/cucumber-ruby

AVA

https://github.com/avajs/ava
Programming language

Ruby

JavaScript

Category

Acceptance Testing

Unit Testing, Intergration Testing

General info

An automation tool for Behavior-Driven Development

The specifications are written in plain texts, which allows them to be easily understandable for all stakeholders. Cucumber Framework also supports languages beyond Ruby e.g. Java, JavaScript and Scala.

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
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

No

No

However Ava supports the TAP format which allows us to use the tap-xunit reporter to produce xUnit (JUnit) XML
Client-side
Allows testing code execution on the client, such as a web browser

Yes

You can test the front-end part like the GUI using cucumber and selenium, they integrate well to test your front-end.

Yes

You can write tests for the DOM with Ava, testing front-end components is easy with Ava
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

You can test back-end components such as APIs using rest & soap clients, and databases using whatever client libraries were provided by the libraries that existed in those stacks

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
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
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

Using the cucumber extension aruba you can create fixures in two steps: 1.Create a fixtures-directory; 2.Create fixture files in this directory

Yes

Ava has support for group 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.

Yes

You can group your fixtures inside your fixtures directories

N/A

Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

MIT License

MIT 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)

Yes

By using all of RSpec’s supported mocking frameworks (RSpec, Mocha, RR, Flexmock)

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

Yes

Cucumber allows the use of tag Cucumber feature files or individual tests to group tests. Then, you can pass a Cucumber tagged expression at test execution that specifies the tag (grouped) tests to run. https://www.toolsqa.com/cucumber/cucumber-tags/

No

There is no support for grouping tests
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework