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Vows vs WebdriverIO comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between Vows and WebdriverIO?

Vows

http://vowsjs.org/

WebdriverIO

https://webdriver.io/
Programming language

JavaScript

JavaScript

Category

Functional Testing, Asynchronous Testing

Browser Automation, Unit Testing, Functional Testing

General info

Vows is a testing framework for NodeJS applications.

Vows supports Asynchronous BDD & continuous testing for two reasons first, reason is that node.js is asynchronous, and therefore our tests need to be, second,is to make test suites which target I/O libraries run much faster.

WebdriverIO is the next-gen WebDriver test framework for Node.js made upon Selenium

WebdriverIO is written in JavaScript and uses Selenium under the hood. It also comes with its own inbuilt test runner and supports other testing frameworks like Jasmine, Cucumber, and Mocha
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

No

Yes

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

No

Yes

WebdriverIO allows the use of advanced CSS selectors and makes it easy to find elements for front-end testing
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

Since it specifically tests Nodejs it tests back-end components and other server-side behaviours and functions

Yes

It can be used to test server side behaviour and functionality
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

No

Yes

WebdriverIO supports the creation of fixtures
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.

No

Yes

WebdriverIO supports the creation of 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

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

It contains a mocking service called 'wdio-wiremock-service'
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

WebdriverIO allows one to build test suites, you can run these test in parallel and organize them by adjusting the 'maxInstances' property in your config file
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework