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PHPUnit vs Codedeception comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between PHPUnit and Codedeception?

PHPUnit

https://phpunit.de/

Codedeception

https://codeception.com/
Programming language

PHP

PHP

Category

Unit Testing

Unit Testing, Acceptance Testing/Functional Testing

General info

PHPUnit is a unit testing framework for the PHP programming language

PHPUnit is a programmer-oriented testing framework and is an instance of the xUnit architecture for unit testing frameworks.

Codeception is a full-stack testing framework for PHP

It is inspired by BDD and provides a way of writing acceptance, functional and even unit tests. It is powered by PHPUnit.
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

Yes

It's an instance of the xUnit architecture for unit testing frameworks

No

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

Yes

It can perform Unit tests and can test various front-end components and behaviours

Yes

One is able to write acceptance tests which are used to look at functionality from a user's perspective. It is able to look at pages in browser (Chrome, Firefox or PhpBrowser)
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

By performing unit tests on singular back-end components

Yes

It supports back-end tests, by writing functionaltests one can be able to test server behaviour
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

Yes

By use of a setup code. The setup code consists of two Important template functions, the 'setUp()' function (called to create the objects to be tested) and 'tearDown()' function (called to cleanup the objects which you tested)

Yes

One can define a fixture and write the test with Codedeception, use the yii2-codedeceptionextention which will autoload fixtures for you
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

It does support group fixtures

Yes

One 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

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported 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

One of its main features is that PHPUnit comes with out of the box support for Mock objects

Yes

Codeception provides Codeception\Stub library for building mocks and stubs for tests
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

It allows grouping of tests and by using the @group annotation one can tag a test to belong to one or more groups

Yes

Codeception consists of three so-called “suites”: A “unit suite” for all unit tests, a “functional suite” for all functional tests, and an “acceptance suite” for all acceptance tests.
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework