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

	Needle http://needle.spree.de/	Spock http://spockframework.org/
Programming language	Java	Java
Category	Unit Testing	Unit 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	Spock is a testing and specification framework for Java and Groovy applications Spock has a highly expressive specification language, and due to its JUnit runner, Spock is compatible with most IDEs, build tools, and continuous integration servers.Spock is inspired from JUnit, RSpec, jMock, Mockito, Groovy, Scala, Vulcans among others
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 You can test front-end components and functionality by testing individual front-end classes and functions	Yes Spock tests front-end components and functionality by unit testing individual classes and functions
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 Spock tests back-end components and functionality by unit testing individual 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 Spock contains four methods for setting up environments :setup() (run before every feature method), cleanup() (run after every feature method), setupSpec() (run before the first feature method), cleanupSpec() (run after the last feature method)
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 use the fixture methods to setup environments for groups of tests.
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 Spock has inbuilt mocking capabilities and has no need for external libraries
Grouping Allows organizing tests in groups	N/A	Yes You can create suites manually in spock
Other Other useful information about the testing framework