Here’s the Deal

Zombie.js vs Nightwatch.js

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When comparing Zombie.js vs Nightwatch.js, the Slant community recommends Nightwatch.js for most people. In the question“What are the best automated browser testing frameworks?” Nightwatch.js is ranked 2nd while Zombie.js is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Nightwatch.js is:

Nightwatch solves the [Paradox of Choice](http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en) among testing frameworks such as Jasmine, Cucumber or Mocha+Chai, by including its own BDD-style assertion library, based on Chai.

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Common Questions

What are the best automated browser testing frameworks?

Pros

Pro
Runs on Node.js

Zombie is built on node.js, making it very easy to integrate with your project and into your testing toolchain. It only requires JavaScript to run.

Pro
Fully featured api based interaction and assertion

The way the api is built makes it very easy to add to your test framework.

Pro
Claims to be "Insanely Fast"

It's a lot faster than fully fletched browsers and a lot lighter. Partly because it really only focuses on headless loading of pages along with their JavaScript (not taking really care of rendering or more visual resources).

Pro
You don't have to choose a testing framework

Nightwatch solves the Paradox of Choice among testing frameworks such as Jasmine, Cucumber or Mocha+Chai, by including its own BDD-style assertion library, based on Chai.

Pro
Includes its own testing framework / assertions library

Pro
Test organization is out of the box

Supports page object model, custom commands, custom assertions, and globals.js.

Pro
3rd party integration with Cucumber

Though Cucumber is not officially supported, Nightwatch can be used with Cucumber.

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Cons

Con
Support has waned

As of August 19, 2016, Zombie hasn't received a commit since January 2016. Issues get comments like "patch welcome".

Con
Stale documentation

Full API documentation has been missing since the start, making it frustrating to use.

Con
Fails to load many sites

As its JavaScript and DOM engine are mostly "just good enough" and because by design it'll report all errors and stop there, many complex sites will not load properly through Zombie.js.

Con
No screen-shot

As it doesn't render the page, you cannot get a screenshot to for testing or reporting test failures.

Con
No official BDD-style syntax support

Con
Includes its own testing framework / assertions library

Unlike WebdriverIO, which lets you use various test frameworks and assertion libraries (e.g. Jasmine, Cucumber, Mocha + Chai), Nightwatch comes with its own BDD-style interface for performing assertions, based on Chai.

Here's a simple test example:

module.exports = {
  'Demo test Google' : function (browser) {
    browser
      .url('http://www.google.com')
      .waitForElementVisible('body', 1000)
      .setValue('input[type=text]', 'nightwatch')
      .waitForElementVisible('button[name=btnG]', 1000)
      .click('button[name=btnG]')
      .pause(1000)
      .assert.containsText('#main', 'Night Watch')
      .end();
  }
};