node:test vs TestNG

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

TestNG Team · since 2004

• 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.

• Mature parallel-execution and grouping model, ideal for large Selenium suites.
• Data providers make data-driven testing straightforward.
• Test dependencies and ordering, which JUnit deliberately avoids.

• 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.

• XML suite configuration is dated and error-prone.
• Test dependencies encourage ordering coupling that makes suites fragile.
• Community momentum favours JUnit 5 for new projects.

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

Java Selenium automation frameworks and large integration suites.