Testcontainers vs WireMock

Free tier available

Free tier available

Free. Testcontainers Cloud, which offloads container execution, is a paid Docker product.

Open source is free; WireMock Cloud is a paid hosted service for shared team mocks.

The libraries are free and open source.

Open-source WireMock is complete and free.

Category standard

AtomicJar (Docker) · since 2015

Category standard

WireMock Inc. · since 2013

• Tests run against the real database engine, so dialect and behaviour differences surface early.
• Containers are disposable, which removes shared-state flakiness entirely.
• Excellent language coverage with idiomatic APIs.

• Fault and latency injection lets you test the error paths that never occur on demand in a real sandbox.
• Record-and-replay produces a realistic mock from live traffic quickly.
• Runs anywhere: embedded, standalone, container or cloud.

• Requires a Docker daemon in CI, which not every environment provides.
• Container startup adds seconds to each test run unless reused carefully.
• Heavier resource usage than in-memory alternatives.

• Recorded stubs drift from the real service unless you re-record or verify contracts.
• Complex stateful scenarios get verbose in JSON.
• HTTP only — not for message queues or gRPC without extensions.

Integration tests that currently use in-memory databases and lie to you.

Teams whose integration tests depend on third-party HTTP services.