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

ExUnit

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

Vows

http://vowsjs.org/
Programming language

Elixir

JavaScript

Category

Unit Testing

Functional Testing, Asynchronous 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

Vows is a testing framework for NodeJS applications.

Vows supports Asynchronous BDD & continuous testing for two reasons first, reason is that node.js is asynchronous, and therefore our tests need to be, second,is to make test suites which target I/O libraries run much faster.
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

No

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

Since it specifically tests Nodejs it tests back-end components and other server-side behaviours and functions
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

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

Group fixures are possible with this library

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

Generators are found in the StreamData module

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

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

Other
Other useful information about the testing framework