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SimpleTest vs Cypress.io comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between SimpleTest and Cypress.io?

SimpleTest

https://github.com/simpletest/simpletest

Cypress.io

https://www.cypress.io/
Programming language

PHP

JavaScript

Category

Unit Testing, Web Testing

End-to-End Testing, Intergration Testing, Unit Testing

General info

SimpleTest is a unit test and web test framework for PHP

It has JWebUnit style functionality and support for SSL, forms, frames, proxies and basic authentication

Cypress users are typically developers or QA engineers building web applications using modern JavaScript frameworks. This is the top tier UI automation framework which outsmarts Selenium based frameworks in most of the aspects!

Cypress enables you to write all types of tests: 1. End-to-end tests; 2. Integration tests; 3. Unit tests; 4. Cypress can test anything that runs in a browser; Apart from that Cypress provides the Dashboard facility for CI/CD
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

With SimpleTest common but fiddly PHP tasks, such as logging into a site, can be tested easily

Yes

This is the primary goal of Cypress, it tests anything that runs in a browser and works to build great user experience that is it tests the applications flow from beginning to end from a user's perspective. It is built to handle modern JavaScript frameworks especially well and also works equally well on older server rendered pages or applications
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

Server-side behaviour can be tested by writing simple unit tests to test functionality and behaviour of single components.

Yes

Although Cypress is not a general automation framework, nor is it a unit testing framework for your back-end services, It can test back-end behaviours for example using cy.task() command which provides a way for running Node code, so you can take actions necessary for your tests outside of the scope of Cypress
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

Yes

It can import fixtures using a mixin like 'given()' method

Yes

Cypress has inbuilt fixtures capabilities or example using the command 'cy.fixture(filePath)' loads a fixed set of data located in a file
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 allows grouping of fixtures

Yes

Cypress can create group fixtures using the 'cy.fixture' command
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

Simpletest has support for generators

N/A

Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1

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

It allows for one to build Mock objects.To create a mock version of a class we need to include the mock object library and run the generator. This will create a clone class which we use to create new instances(objects) in our test cases.

Yes

Cypress comes built in with the ability to stub and spy with cy.stub(), cy.spy(), It also automatically bundles 'sinon', 'lolex' and 'sinon-chai' which all work to give Cypress mocking capabilities
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

There are several ways of grouping tests; one is to simply place multiple test cases into a single file, another is to mark any base test cases that should not be run as abstract, Simpletest gives you a couple of options

Yes

Cypress allows you to configure tests into groups however there is no way currently to run the groups
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework