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Cypress.io vs SpecFlow comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between Cypress.io and SpecFlow?

Cypress.io

https://www.cypress.io/

SpecFlow

https://specflow.org/
Programming language

JavaScript

.NET

Category

End-to-End Testing, Intergration Testing, Unit Testing

Acceptance Testing

General info

Cypress users are typically developers or QA engineers building web applications using modern JavaScript frameworks. This is the top tier UI automation framework which outsmarts Selenium based frameworks in most of the aspects!

Cypress enables you to write all types of tests: 1. End-to-end tests; 2. Integration tests; 3. Unit tests; 4. Cypress can test anything that runs in a browser; Apart from that Cypress provides the Dashboard facility for CI/CD

SpecFlow is a test automation solution for .NET

SpecFlow is a test automation solution for .NET which follows the BDD paradigm, and is part of the Cucumber family. SpecFlow tests are written with Gherkin, using the official Gherkin parser which allows you to write test cases using natural languages and supports over 70 languages.
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

This is the primary goal of Cypress, it tests anything that runs in a browser and works to build great user experience that is it tests the applications flow from beginning to end from a user's perspective. It is built to handle modern JavaScript frameworks especially well and also works equally well on older server rendered pages or applications

Yes

Front-end behaviour is tested. With specflow specifications of the expected behaviours are made and specflow tests against this
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

Although Cypress is not a general automation framework, nor is it a unit testing framework for your back-end services, It can test back-end behaviours for example using cy.task() command which provides a way for running Node code, so you can take actions necessary for your tests outside of the scope of Cypress

Yes

Back-end behaviour is tested. Specifications of the expected behaviours are made and specflow tests against them
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

Yes

Cypress has inbuilt fixtures capabilities or example using the command 'cy.fixture(filePath)' loads a fixed set of data located in a file

Yes

BeforeTestRun and AfterTestRun are executed once for each thread which is a limitation of the current architecture.
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

Cypress can create group fixtures using the 'cy.fixture' command

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.

N/A

Yes

SpecFlow contains a generator component. The SpecFlow IDE integration tries to locate the generator component in your project structure, in order to use the generator version matching the SpecFlow runtime in your project
Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

MIT License

BSD 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

Cypress comes built in with the ability to stub and spy with cy.stub(), cy.spy(), It also automatically bundles 'sinon', 'lolex' and 'sinon-chai' which all work to give Cypress mocking capabilities

Yes

Specflow intergrates well with mock to give it excellent mocking capabilities
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

Cypress allows you to configure tests into groups however there is no way currently to run the groups

Yes

You can create test suites with specflow
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework