This is quick and short update on state of Kotlin-targeted testing frameworks.
I’ve already written a lot about this matter in my previous article The best testing framework for Kotlin. This is only update on what really changed since then.
JUnit is still JUnit
Not surprisingly, nothing significant changed here. We have good ol’ JUnit4 and for non Android projects we have JUnit 5 with much more great stuff. Still I haven’t seen any easy way to use JUnit 5 for Android development. If I’m wrong - let me know! But that’s why it’s hard to name JUnit 5 as a real contender here. For server side - sure. For Android - not yet.
Spek is going down
Really nothing much going on there. First I wanted to write “Spek is dead”. But I don’t want to be too harsh for such ambitious project and there are still commits and PRs being made. Majority of them by Ranie Jade only.
However, remember my post from January? I wrote that creator of Spek in November said that it’s in your best interest to wait for version 2.0. Coming soon. In January that soon was:
And progress since January (as for June 4th)?
It’s a shame but for now, I just don’t see it happening.
KotlinTest reborn
Meanwhile, KotlinTest is going strong. Several days ago I wrote about KotlinTest 3.0. You can find more info there, but short summary is that: its core as well as main cool features just work. Release 3.0 is mature and development is ongoing. There are no dealbreakers - unlike previously - that would make it unusable. It’s simply good.
Summary
It’s funny how it all turned out. Spek with almost official Jetbrains support a year ago looked like next awesome thing about Kotlin development. KotlinTest was meant to introduce ScalaTest to Kotlin world and this types of transplants usually don’t hold very well.
And here we are, Spek is going down, while KotlinTest is rising. Is there anyone else who can pick up the gloves? Or maybe we don’t need much more than old known JUnit?