What is the difference between NightwatchJS and WebdriverIO?

Question

As the title states, what is the difference between Nightwatch.js and Webdriver.io?

It seems like they have kind of the same syntax and do almost the same thing. How ar

Answer 1

This question has become a real fork in the road for a lot of web-automation POC and/or MVP implementations. I don't want it to dictate the wrong direction!

Thus, I feel it needs a more thorough answer, with a broader reach (ease of installation, dependencies, important plugins, services, reporters, documentation, support, & other integrations) and hopefully a more subjective delivery than the accepted answer.

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❒ TL;DR: (for the lazies!)

➮ if you're a beginner, starting out with web automation, or you want to build-up the test-coverage for a small/medium-sized web app, then choose any of the two! (might as well do a coin-flip!) The differences between the two are very slim at a lower level. The cracks become gaps only when you reach more complex challenges, later down the road.

➮ if you're looking into building a full-fledged, heavyweight automation harness in order to assure the quality for a big corporate web app, or a massive web portal, then read the entire post (or take my advice & go WDIO!)

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❒ Credentials: (what recommends me to have a say in this?)

I have been working with NodeJS based test frameworks extensively since early 2013, having occupied various QA automation engineering roles from entry-level, to senior, to QA Lead. I'll summarize my working experience with these frameworks & web automation:

• WebdriverIO (+4 years)
• Nightwatch (+2 year)
• built, maintained & extended several frameworks using these tools, assuring quality over all major browsers & environments (desktop & mobile)
• kept several WebdriverIO & NightwatchJS talks & presentations at various meetups/conferences
• fairly familiar with the entire NodeJS testing environment (apart from WebdriverIO & Nightwatch, also worked with: WebdriverJS (original fork for WebdriverIO), Nightmare, Robot & as of recently, Puppeteer).

❒ Recommandation: If you have to pick between the two for the implementation of a POC, I recommend you read through this entire answer. Only then can you have a complete outlook on the entire tableau.

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❒ Project Details:

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