Knapsack Pro

ExUnit vs Testify comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between ExUnit and Testify?

ExUnit

https://hexdocs.pm/ex_unit/ExUnit.html

Testify

https://github.com/Yelp/Testify
Programming language

Elixir

Python

Category

Unit Testing

Unit Testing

General info

Unit testing framework for Elixir.

Elixir comes bundled with ExUnit allowing developers to use all elixir features without compromising unit tests. It uses a TDD workflow, and shows one message per test

A Python unit testing framework modelled after unittest

Testify is modelled after unittest but has more features while still supporting unittest classes. It has more pythonic naming conventions, an better test runner output visually, a decorator-based approach to fixture methods among many other features
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

Yes

xUnit has the ExUnit framework as an instance

No

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

Yes

Front-end code can be tested using ExUnit, Phoenix front-end framework for Elixir uses ExUnit as the default testing framework

Yes

Front-end functionality and behaviour can be tested by Testify.
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

ExUnit tests backend code. Typically Unit tests will be written not to interact with the browser, but with ExUnit you can test whichever part of your application

Yes

Testify can test various server and database behaviours and functionality
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

Yes

ExUnit has a library called ExUnitFixtures fixtures are functions that are run before a test is run to setup the test environment or provide the test with data

Yes

Fixture methods are supported and it follows a decorator based approach, that is they are written similar to decorators
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

Group fixures are possible with this library

Yes

Group fixtures are supported
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

Generators are found in the StreamData module

Yes

One can create generator methods to yield runnable test methods which will pick out the test methods from your TestCases, and then exclude any in any of your exclude_suites method.If there are any require_suites, it will then further limit itself to test methods in those suites.
Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

Apache License 2.0

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)

Yes

Mocks are available for use with ExUnit through the Mock module. Also available through the use of third party libraries like mecktest

Yes

It includes the turtle mock object library
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

Using the 'describe' function which goups tests together. Every describe block recieves a name which is used as a prefix for upcoming tests

Yes

Testify includes support for detecting and running test suites, grouped by modules, classes, or individual test methods.
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework