Knapsack Pro

Robot Framework vs RSpec comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between Robot Framework and RSpec?

Robot Framework

https://robotframework.org/

RSpec

https://rspec.info
Programming language

Python

Ruby

Category

Acceptance Testing

Unit Testing, Intergration Testing

General info

Robot is a Python framework used for acceptance/functional testing

Robot is an automated test framework which has a simple plain text syntax and can be extended easily with Python or Java libraries. It can run on the .net-based IronPython and on Jython which is Java based.

Domain Specific Language (DSL) testing solution for Ruby code

It focuses on empowering Test Driven Development (TDD). RSpec contains multiple smaller libraries, which may be independently used with other testing frameworks.
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

No

Yes

Yes, but it differs from more traiditional xUnit solutions. Its tests are written in a "Tests as Specification" manner. This means that the terminology used in RSpec is adjusted to a language more fitting for specification.
Client-side
Allows testing code execution on the client, such as a web browser

Yes

Robot has a rich library and can also be easily integrated with Selenium for browser automation to test front-end components

Yes

RSpec is used to primarily test the behaviour of applications or individual components so it can test front-end behaviour as well - you can use capybara gem with RSpec for that.
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

Robot can be used for back-end tests as well

Yes

You can test server-side behaviour with Rspec
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

There is no inbuilt way to work with fixtures in Robot however it can integrate with unittest and use fixtures that way

Yes

RSpec does contain fixture methods
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.

By integrating with unittest

Yes

Group fixture methods 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

Robot has a library called the Robot Framework Faker library. It contains 147 keywords used for generating random test data

Yes

RSpec contains generators for example intergration_'test_name' which will save a spec inside the spec/requests folder
Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

Apache License 2.0

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

Robot can access Python's mock library for mocking

Yes

Available through rspec-mocks gem.
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

One can create a test suite with Robot

Yes

Allows declaring example groups and contexts.
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework