Knapsack Pro

Needle vs Arquillian comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between Needle and Arquillian?

Needle

http://needle.spree.de/

Arquillian

http://arquillian.org/
Programming language

Java

Java

Category

Unit Testing

Intergration Testing, Functional Testing

General info

Needle is a lightweight framework for testing Java EE components outside of the container in isolation

Needle reduces the test setup code by analysing dependencies and has automatic injection of mock objects by default. Therefore It will maximize the speed of development as well as the execution of unit tests

Arquillian is an Open source framework for writing Integration and functional tests

Arquilian comes bundled with many extra tools such as Arquillian graphene, Drone and Selenium to write tests to the visual layer as well
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

No

Yes

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

Yes

You can test front-end components and functionality by testing individual front-end classes and functions

Yes

You can perform unit tests on front-end components and functionality
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

You can test back-end components and functionality.one of needles features is database testing via a JPA (Java Persistence API) like hibernate

Yes

You can unit tests on back-end behaviours and functionalities by testing specific back-end classes 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

It has setUp() and tearDown() functions which are mostly used to execute database operations

Yes

By use of extensions, for example you can use the Persistence extension to set database fixtures
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

The setUp() and tearDown functions can be used to define an environment for a group of tests

Yes

You can define 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

N/A

Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1

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

One of needle's features is automatic injection of mock objects, it supports EasyMock and Mockito out of the box

Yes

Arquillian supports mock object functionality you can use third party libraries
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

N/A

Yes

Arquilian supports grouping of tests
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework