Know how some of the best JavaScript unit testing tools are used in the industry!

Testing a software is essential but we should not forget it is time consuming. And we would understand, if as a developer, you would have really made an attempt to do minimal unit testing in order to save your time. But skipping unit testing is not a solution, it might increase your work later.

It leads to higher defect fixing cost during the system testing, integration testing and even during beta testing it might not leave you alone. Proper unit testing done during the development stages is the best way to avoid wastage of time and money.

So, before we give away the best JavaScript unit testing tools, we want you to give you reasons to know how unit testing can help you.

Key reasons to perform unit testing

1. Unit testing helps you fix the bugs early in the development cycle and save costs.
2. You can use it to understand the code base and make the few changes.
3. It will serve as a project documentation.
4. Unit tests will help you in re-using the code and migrating both your code and test to the new project. All you need to do is change a code until the test runs again.

Best Java Script unit testing tools used all across industry

When starting development of any new front-end project, you will always have that one question bouncing back to you, “what is the right JavaScript unit testing framework to use”. Well, the answer is there isn’t just one, but many and you can use them as per the project requirement. Here are the top 5 of them we highly recommend:

1. Jasmine
2. AVA
3. Tape
4. Mocha
5. Jest

Jasmine:

One of the best and most popular amongst the top web development agencies, Jasmine is everything you need.

• It comes with assertions, spies, mocks, and about everything a developer can think of while starting out with the unit test development. It aids you in initial set and you can add libraries if you require unit functionality.

• It integrates with Angular 1 and Angular 2 alongside many other popular libraries of the current times.

• It has variety of features.

One of the most commonly disliked point is the globals populating the environment. Although it also makes it easy for you to add tests into the app right away but.

AVA:

Who would not like minimalism in 2020? It is one of those toolsets that celebrate minimalism. It works by leveraging the JavaScript’s async nature and runs the test concurrently. This enables it to increase the performance and also reduce time.

• One of the advantages of AVA over Jasmine is it does not create any globals. This surely makes it easy to use and also gives you more control. It gives you a clear picture and ensures you know what is going on within the testing process.

• One of the biggest advantages, that even biggest web development companies can’t deny, is that of its ability to use the async nature. It is best if you are wanting to reduce the testing process between deployments.

• Snapshot testing is provided by jest-snapshots which is great when you would like to know when your application UI has changed.

Tape:

Now that you have met the minimalist, its time we introduce you to the king of minimalism. There is nothing around this year which can beat Tape at its minimalism. It is straightforward and gives you just what you need.

• It gives tough competition to Ava as it too doesn’t support globals. But instead gives you the opportunity to include them. This way you stay in control.

• No setup or teardown methods, but instead you need to define the setup code in each test making each test clearer.

• It prevents state being shared between tests.

• It is easy to use, fast to run and best part is, it can run anywhere that is running on JavaScript without causing any overload of configuration options.

Mocha:

It is one of the best unit testing libraries. The most common reason for it is its flexibility and provision of base test structure.

• If you are looking for flexible configuration, Mocha is your thing. It includes the libraries that you will need and then there is additional set up and configuration which is really something you need to experience.

• Mocha includes globals as the test structure, but before you start judging, it saves your time by giving you the chance to include it only when you require it.

Mocha is great, but even with these amazing features its major drawback lies in the additional libraries for assertions. It makes it a little harder and, can take a little too much of your time to set up when we compare it with others. But it will be only one time so you can always think about it.

Jest:

You will be surprised it is being used by Facebook. And not just used, it is even highly recommended by them too. It is best to use with a variety of React Applications. And many ecommerce development companies are using it too. It has a clever parallel testing which makes the testing faster.

• If you are handling a large project, it is surely going to increase performance, as you will be wanting to deploy the project more often throughout the day and it will save you lot of time.

• It is not just React applications, but also it can integrate well with other applications which is surely a feature to get impressed with.

• Snapshot testing, as we said earlier is a huge advantage when it comes to ensure application UI is not changing between the releases. You just need to find the right plugins for using this feature of it for apps built on any other framework other than React and you are good to go.

• So, as we were saying assertion of additional libraries is hard, but you don’t have to worry about it with Jest. It comes with wide API and completely eliminates the need to include additional libraries unless it is really important. You get the best of both worlds.

It used globals and like the other similar libraries it has always been a drawback. But don’t forget that it gives you immense support in different environments and thus is great when you are building any project.

Conclusion:

We have some of the best options spread around us here today. But still the question remains the same. What to choose? Most of the frameworks listed in the blog provides you with the testing environment and mechanism that will simplify your work.

But the right way to choose is by knowing what are the peculiar needs of your project. May be your project demands you to have a broad API along side unique features, go for Mocha.

Or if you are working on simpler project, choose to go with AVA and Tape that meets your minimal requirements perfectly. Or if the project is just too large and you always have Jest.

In hopes to have provide you a perspective, we will sign off by ending with saying there are many more unit testing libraries that might be a perfect fit for you, stay tuned for more updates.