Knapsack Pro

unittest2 vs Cucumber comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between unittest2 and Cucumber?

unittest2

https://pypi.org/project/unittest2/

Cucumber

https://github.com/cucumber/cucumber-ruby
Programming language

Python

Ruby

Category

Unit Testing

Acceptance Testing

General info

Unittest2 is a newer version on the inbuilt unit testing framework unittest

To use o use unittest2 instead of unittest, simply replace 'import unittest' with 'import unittest2'. It has many new features such as: - addCleanups for better resource management; -many new assert methods; - assertRaises as context manager, with access to the exception afterwards; - test discovery and new command line options (including failfast and better handling of ctrl-C during test runs); - class and module level fixtures: setUpClass, tearDownClass, setUpModule, tearDownModule; -test skipping and expected failures and many more improvements on the API and bug fixes

An automation tool for Behavior-Driven Development

The specifications are written in plain texts, which allows them to be easily understandable for all stakeholders. Cucumber Framework also supports languages beyond Ruby e.g. Java, JavaScript and Scala.
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

Yes

unittest2 is a newer version of unittest which is an xUnit style framework for Python.

No

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

Yes

Front-end functionality and behaviour can be tested by unittest2. function by function

Yes

You can test the front-end part like the GUI using cucumber and selenium, they integrate well to test your front-end.
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

We can write tests with unittest2 to test each function for server-side behaviour

Yes

You can test back-end components such as APIs using rest & soap clients, and databases using whatever client libraries were provided by the libraries that existed in those stacks
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 the 'setUp()' function which is called to prepare the test fixture

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

unittest2 allows you to group your initialization code buy use of the 'setUp()' function and clean up code with a 'tearDown()' function

Yes

Using the cucumber extension aruba you can create fixures in two steps: 1.Create a fixtures-directory; 2.Create fixture files in this directory
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

unittest2 contains generator methods in the module 'unittest.TestCase'

Yes

You can group your fixtures inside your fixtures directories
Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

MIT 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

Mocks are available from the library unittest.mock which allows you to replace parts of your system under test with mock objects

Yes

By using all of RSpec’s supported mocking frameworks (RSpec, Mocha, RR, Flexmock)
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

One can build suites either manually or use test discovery to build the suite automatically by scanning a directory

Yes

Cucumber allows the use of tag Cucumber feature files or individual tests to group tests. Then, you can pass a Cucumber tagged expression at test execution that specifies the tag (grouped) tests to run. https://www.toolsqa.com/cucumber/cucumber-tags/
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework