node:test vs NUnit

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

.NET Foundation · since 2002

• 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.

• The most expressive built-in assertion library in .NET.
• Familiar attribute model for teams migrating from older frameworks.
• Very stable, very long-lived.

• 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.

• Shared test-class instances mean state can leak between tests unless you are careful.
• New Microsoft templates default to xUnit, so it is drifting from the mainstream.
• Attribute-heavy style feels dated.

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

Existing .NET codebases already standardised on NUnit.