Jest, Enzyme vs Cypress.js — Why writing only e2e tests might be smarter

Today I had to write tests for some React.js components and wondered If it would not be smarter to use Cypress.js for this purpose. I know Cypress.js is intended to be an end-to-end testing tool where Jest+Enzyme is used for testing a component in isolation.

I see a couple of advantages of using Cypress.js:

• The test suite is not dependent on the frontend framework. If you decide to replace React.js with e.g. Vue.js you do not have to throw away your test suite. Instead, you can use the existing tests to verify the rewritten component.
• I find testing user interactions with Jest quite cumbersome. However, user interactions are the tricky part of user interfaces and the main source of bugs. Cypress.js is designed to test interactions as they were made by the user itself.
• Jest and Enzyme emphasizes a “mockist testing style”. Making it harder to refactor the component as the subcomponents are usually stubbed and tested separately.
• Even using Cypress.js you could test only components by mounting the component into an empty app containing only the component. Also, Cypress.js provides functionality to stub XHR requests. So It would not be required to have a backend up and running.

I would be happy to hear your thoughts on that. Leave a comment!

Best Regards,

Oliver, working on www.monsterwriter.app