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

Cucumber

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

Spinach

https://github.com/codegram/spinach
Programming language

Ruby

Ruby

Category

Acceptance Testing

Acceptance 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.

Spinach is a BDD framework on top of Gherkin

Spinach is a high-level BDD framework that leverages the Gherkin language to help define executable specifications of your application or library's acceptance criteria.
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

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

N/A

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

You can test any server-side behaviour with Spinach
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

No

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

No

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

Yes

Spinach has inbuilt generator methods
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)

Yes

Spinach can access the rspec-mocks methods
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/

Yes

Spinach Integrates with your RSpec test suite which allows declaring example groups and contexts.
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework