Mocha vs node:test

Free and open source

Free and open source

Free and open source. You pay in engineering time and CI minutes.

Free and open source. You pay in engineering time and CI minutes.

Everything, self-hosted

Everything, self-hosted

Widely used

OpenJS Foundation · since 2011

Established

OpenJS Foundation · since 2022

• Small, stable and predictable — it does one job and has done it the same way for years.
• Pick your own assertions, mocks and coverage rather than accepting a bundle.
• Excellent async and reporter support.

• No dependencies to install, audit or upgrade — a real supply-chain advantage for libraries.
• Stable and versioned with the runtime itself.
• Fast, with parallel execution by file and built-in coverage.

• No built-in mocking, snapshots, coverage or parallel-by-default execution.
• Assembling and documenting the stack is work every new project repeats.
• Fewer new projects adopt it; momentum sits with Vitest and Jest.

• No DOM environment, so it is a poor fit for front-end component testing.
• Ecosystem of reporters and matchers is tiny compared to Jest or Vitest.
• TypeScript requires a loader or a build step.

Node.js services where you want explicit control over every part of the test stack.

Node libraries and backend services that want a dependency-free test setup.