When comparing tape vs Ava, the Slant community recommends tape for most people. In the question“What are the best JavaScript unit testing frameworks?” tape is ranked 5th while Ava is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose tape is:
Very simple API that doesn't require globals, or monkey patching objects for assertions.
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Pros
Pro Simple API
Very simple API that doesn't require globals, or monkey patching objects for assertions.
Pro Built-in assert
This way you don't have to add more dependencies and external assertion libraries.
Pro No global functions
Tape does not use global methods such as "it", "describe", since they are not considered best practice in JavaScript.
Pro It follows the principles of TAP
TAP: Test Anything Protocol
Pro Isolated tests
Each test is run in isolation.
Cons
Con No concurrency
Cannot run async test cases concurrently for faster test builds.
Con No browser testing supported
Only supports tests in Node and the backend and not the browser.