Cucumber vs QA Wolf

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Open source core. SmartBear sells CucumberStudio for collaborative scenario authoring, priced per user on request.

Annual service contracts. Substantially cheaper than hiring an in-house automation team, substantially more expensive than a tool licence.

The Cucumber libraries are open source and free.

Widely used

Smartbear · since 2008

Emerging

QA Wolf · since 2019

• Shared vocabulary between product, QA and engineering when the practice is actually followed.
• Scenarios double as living documentation that stays honest because it executes.
• Available in every major language.

• Removes the maintenance burden entirely — no flaky-test triage on your side.
• You own the Playwright code, so leaving is possible.
• Coverage arrives in weeks rather than quarters.

• Almost always adopted as a syntax rather than a collaboration practice, at which point it is pure overhead on top of your real tests.
• The step-definition layer is a second codebase to maintain and refactor.
• Gherkin obscures technical detail that developers need when a test fails.

• It is headcount, not software — the cost profile is completely different from a licence.
• External team needs deep product context to test meaningfully.
• Fast-moving products can outpace the feedback loop with an external author.

Teams genuinely practising BDD with three-amigos sessions, not teams who just want prettier test names.

Funded startups that need coverage now and have no QA hire in the plan.