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Mocha vs Chai comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between Mocha and Chai?

Mocha

https://mochajs.org

Chai

https://www.chaijs.com
Programming language

JavaScript

JavaScript

Category

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

Unit Testing

General info

Mocha is a widely used JavaScript test framework for Node.js

Mocha is a simple, flexible and the one of the widely adopted JS test framework. Mocha usually runs tests serially which enables the accurate reporting. Also it's useful for asynchronous testing, and provides various king of test reports. Spec is default test reporter for mocha, there are many test reports like Nyan, Dot matrix, Tap, Landing strip, List and Progress. Mocha is being used with many other test frameworks like Selenium WebDriver, Webdriver.io, wd and Cypress

Chai is a BDD / TDD assertion library for Node.js and the browser that can be paired with any JavaScript testing framework.

Chai is an assertion library, similar to Node's built-in assert and makes testing easier by giving you many assertions you can run against your code. It also includes a robust Plugin architecture for extending Chai's assertions and interfaces.
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

Yes

It has an XUnit reporter available which outputs an XUnit-compatible XML document, often applicable in CI servers.

N/A

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

Yes

Mocha Runs in the browser and is used widely to test front-end components and functionality. It can test various DOM elements, front-end functions and so on.

Yes

Chai can be used in a browser environment to test front-end components and functionality
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

Mocha provides convenient ways of testing the Node server.It works well with Chai (an assertion library) where it provides the environment for writing server-side tests while we write the tests with Chai

Yes

Chai is used in a Node.JS environment to test server 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

Mocha provides the hooks before(), after(), beforeEach(), and afterEach() to set up preconditions and clean up after your tests

N/A

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.

N/A

Mocha allows grouping of fixtures

N/A

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

By using chai-spec-generator plugin which will generate chai test specs from a JavaScript object
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)

Provides Mocking capabilities through third party libraries like sinon.js, simple-mock and nock

Yes

By using by using a third party library like chai-jest-mocks which is a chai plugin that adds assertions for jest mock functions. You can also use sinon.js
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

Grouping is supported and is accomplished by the using a nested 'describe()'

N/A

Other
Other useful information about the testing framework