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

Laravel Dusk

https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/dusk

Behat

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

PHP

PHP

Category

Browser Automation

Functional/Acceptance Testing

General info

Laravel Dusk is an easy-to-use browser automation and testing API.

One can use Dusk to programmatically test applications, visit any website using a real Chrome browser, automate repetitive tasks, scrape information from other sites or test to make sure your app always works in the browser.

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

N/A

No

Client-side
Allows testing code execution on the client, such as a web browser

Yes

It is a browser automation tool which tests front-end components and functionality

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.
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

Laravel provides a variety of tools to make it easier to test your database driven applications

Yes

Behat can be used for Data Integrity Testing to verify that database operations are functioning properly
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

N/A

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.
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.

N/A

Yes

Behat allows 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.

N/A

By use of third party libraries like moodle-behat-generators
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

Laravel provides helpers for mocking events, jobs, and facades out of the box or use Mockery or PHPUnit to create your own mocks or spies

By using third party libraries like Mock and Prophecy
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

Using the 'dusk' which command accepts any argument that is normally accepted by the PHPUnit test runner, allowing you to run the tests for a given group.

Yes

You can use tags to group features and scenarios together, independent of your file and directory structure
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework