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

	WebdriverIO https://webdriver.io/	PHPUnit https://phpunit.de/
Programming language	JavaScript	PHP
Category	Browser Automation, Unit Testing, Functional Testing	Unit Testing
General info	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	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.
xUnit Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.	Yes	Yes It's an instance of the xUnit architecture for unit testing frameworks
Client-side Allows testing code execution on the client, such as a web browser	Yes WebdriverIO allows the use of advanced CSS selectors and makes it easy to find elements for front-end testing	Yes It can perform Unit tests and can test various front-end components and behaviours
Server-side Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code	Yes It can be used to test server side behaviour and functionality	Yes By performing unit tests on singular back-end components
Fixtures Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test	Yes WebdriverIO supports the creation of fixtures	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)
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 WebdriverIO supports the creation of group fixtures	Yes It does support 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	MIT License	Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported 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'	Yes One of its main features is that PHPUnit comes with out of the box support for Mock objects
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	Yes It allows grouping of tests and by using the @group annotation one can tag a test to belong to one or more groups
Other Other useful information about the testing framework