node:test vs Mocha

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

Established

OpenJS Foundation · since 2022

Widely used

OpenJS Foundation · since 2011

• 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.

• 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 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.

• 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.

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

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