JBehave vs Cucumber – Which is right for your Project?

Behavior-driven testing is a popular testing paradigm where English-like sentences describe the scenarios that target the application’s behavior. Its popularity has invited many developers to create new BDD-based frameworks that can be used in various situations. 

Among the various options for BDD-based frameworks, the question of JBehave vs Cucumber has always lingered among testers as both are popular and have existed for a long time in the market. But they serve different purposes altogether and choosing the right framework for the right project is essential for efficient testing. Hence, we crafted this blog to clear this distinction and explore the nuances of JBehave and Cucumber with a touch of a codeless tool. 

JBehave vs Cucumber – An overview

JBehave and Cucumber have taken different trajectories from the time they were introduced till today. They work for the same goal of testing an application using BDD but differ in their core foundational methods. To understand this, let’s explore each framework individually.

What is JBehave?

JBehave is a Java-based unit testing framework that uses BDD testing methodology to write and execute tests. It uses behavior instead of conventional tests which is why its name was kept as JBehave (written in and for Java). The framework uses JUnit to conduct tests that are written as stories and scenarios embedded into your favorite IDE. 

What is JBehave known for?

JBehave was launched long back in 2003 but it still tries to maintain its pace with the current advancements and technologies in behavior-driven development. It is easy to use and allows its stories to run by any unit testing framework just that it has to be annotation-based and based on Java. It supports the auto-generation of steps and allows Maven to run stories using the Maven plugin.

What is Cucumber?

Cucumber is a BDD framework influenced by JBehave. Earlier the framework was written for Ruby language and called RSpec. Later, it was redesigned to satisfy the requirement of having a tool that can be used by anyone including non-technical (and not with a coding background) stakeholders and team members. 

What is Cucumber known for?

When BDD testing is talked about, Cucumber is a big name today. It is used by more than 3450 companies grasping a market share of over 10%. It is the most used BDD tool today and given that it is open-source, the features are quickly updated as per new standards.

Cucumber is probably one of the easiest frameworks to test due to its Gherkin language. Testers feel like they need not learn another language as Gherkin is similar to English text. Cucumber also simplifies testing by providing multiple-language support and easy third-party integration that sheds off much of the load from the tester and they can just focus on scripting test cases.

Mixing JBehave with Selenium

There is a lot of interest in defining the application’s behavior with JBehave and implementing the actual tests with Selenium. This combination is perfect for two reasons:

• The team gets to understand the behavior accurately.
• The team receives the powerful Selenium features for testing.

Fortunately, JBehave can be mixed with Selenium to run tests either class-wise or create a suite for automated ones. However, JBehave does not get complete control over Selenium. The JBehave Selenium module uses WebDriverAPI and Selenium API to conduct tests using both frameworks. 

To use JBehave with Selenium, first, create stories in JBehave. For example, 

Given user is on Home page

When user opens Login page

Then Login page is shown

Then, create an annotation-based step class in Java with Page objects for the same behavior. For example,

Now you can directly use Selenium code by extending this class and applying Selenium methods.

It is important to note here that to use JBehave with Selenium, the tester needs to run a web app server (like Jetty) and a Selenium server to execute the tests. However, if only WebDriver API is used, the tester can skip the Selenium server part.

Similarities between JBehave and Cucumber

JBehave and Cucumber are both used for testing an application and have existed in the market for a long time. However, they come with a lot more similarities than just a “testing” framework.

• Work in BDD: Both JBehave and Cucumber work in the BDD paradigm which evolved from TDD (Test Driven Development).

• Work in Gherkin: Both frameworks support the Gherkin language which is easier to understand, write test cases, and maintain scripts in the future.

• Support for Java: JBehave and Cucumber both support the Java language for test scripting and its libraries (such as TestNG) for creating annotation-based unit tests.

• Integration with IDE: Both frameworks are similar in the fact that they both support IDE integration. Due to this, the tester can write test cases from within the IDE where other types of tests are also present. It provides greater convenience.

These similarities make both frameworks a strong contender to be used for the next project. However, the final decision can only be made by inspecting their differences which ultimately exposes their weaknesses.

Cucumber vs JBehave: What are the differences?

Cucumber and JBehave stand eye to eye on multiple parameters as follows:

Parameter	JBehave	Cucumber
Developed In	Java	Ruby
Available for	Java	Many languages including Java, Ruby, JS, Scala, CPP, etc.
Market Share	~0.01%	~10%
Execution flow	Stories → Scenarios → Steps	Scenario → Steps
Parallel story execution	Available	No story support
Binding to Java method conversion	Supports custom parameter converters to convert the annotation-based binding of textual steps to Java methods.	Supported. May need an additional plugin.
Groovy support	Yes	Yes but outdated.
Multiple file support	Yes	Yes
Example	Scenario: The user should not book a flight with the same source and destination name Given I am a registered userAnd I need to book a ticket from New YorkWhen I select the destination as New YorkThen An error message should appear beneath the destination block	Scenario: Breaker guesses a wordGiven the Maker has chosen a wordWhen the Breaker makes a guessThen the Maker is asked to score
Gherkin support	Yes but not in-built, using transformers.	Yes, built-in
Language support	High	High
Third-party support	Less than Cucumber, IDE, and Maven integration.	Cucumber supports a lot of third-party integrations including CI tools like Jenkins.
Reporting	Basic with minimum points.	Exhaustive reports with many elements.
Community	Not as vast as Cucumber.	Highly active and vast community.
Documentation	Not as detailed as expected. The only source of truth is its official website.	Due to the active community, there are many websites with detailed documentation.
Ease of learning	JBehave uses too many words to describe a scenario (or test case). It can be harder to grasp for beginners.	Cucumber uses a straightforward approach to describe a scenario. Hence, it is easier to learn for beginners.
Best use case	When the project is completely based on Java with the team’s expertise in the language and will remain so in the future.	When the project has a diverse team background and different modules require different languages.
Popular Companies’ adoption	Mastercard, Impetus Technologies, Cognizant Technology Solutions	Walmart, JP Morgan Chase, AT&T, CircleCI

These differences provide a clearer view of the line separating JBehave and Cucumber into two extremely different (yet similar) BDD frameworks used at the enterprise level. However, the similarities and differences remind them that no matter what tool a tester chooses, they still have to learn programming language and story syntax with Gherkin to perform testing efficiently. This is time-consuming work, especially if the team decides to change the language or framework in the future. Can we explore an alternative through which we do not need to worry about programming or BDD but still be able to make test cases in a more comfortable way than the Gherkin syntax?

An alternative to JBehave and Cucumber – Testsigma

JBehave and Cucumber are both great tools with strong communities that actively use them in their projects and discuss them online. However, they both have some common anomalies that may interrupt a tester when they switch the project or when a team member joins without any experience in BDD, Gherkin, or worse, Java. To tackle this, low-code tools have evolved that make sure the testers do not waste their time in learning the syntax of a new language but rather invest it in creating test scripts and improving the quality of the application. 

What is Testsigma?

Testsigma is one such tool that serves as an alternative to JBehave and Cucumber providing the same level of quality, if not more, but demanding lesser work from the testers. It is a low-code cloud-based platform with the below-mentioned exciting features that promote quick testing and an inclusive environment that does not depend on programming languages, setting up heavy infrastructures, and consuming local resources.

• AI-enabled: Testsigma comes with artificial intelligence-driven test automation integrated into the platform ultimately boosting the testing speed up to 10x.

• English-based testing: While BDD looks like English, it follows Gherkin syntax which needs to be followed just like the syntax of a programming language. Testsigma, however, uses natural language processing to help create test cases in the English language and convert them to actions on their own. There are no scenarios or stories involved.

• Easy to learn: Testsigma is a cloud-based platform that works through a user interface instead of programming scripts. Most of the actions can be done via UI and since scripting is in English, it is easy to follow and execute.

• Multiple testing domain support: While JBehave and Cucumber support unit and acceptance testing, Testsigma supports all types of major testing paradigms spanning from data-driven testing, regression testing, and automated API testing, to cross-browser testing.

• Real devices: Testsigma provides real devices on its platform that help ensure the metrics are accurate. It also eliminates the overhead of procuring new devices, maintaining them, and managing them on-premise. Hence, facilitating high-quality cross-platform testing.

• Reporting: Testsigma reports are highly detailed with a lot of parameters along with a graphical representation of all the metrics. It’s intuitive and helps in getting hold of the testing process in a very short time.

Apart from these features, the testers also get collaboration enhancement and features like mobile recorders that can convert a tester’s actions to test scripts directly.

JBehave vs Cucumber vs Testsigma – Which tool is better?

JBehave, Cucumber, and Testsigma all work towards the same goal of testing the modules of an application. However, each of them comes with weaker points that play a huge part in influencing the final decision of the tester. 

JBehave is an old tool that is easily evident by its working methodology, and most of all, its reports. Therefore, when these reports are shared with the stakeholders or the team looks back at them in the future, they do not prove to be of much relevance. Another problem with JBehave is its relation with Java. The framework is tightly coupled with Java language leaving no flexibility to the testers for working outside this circle. In today’s dynamic world where one team uses multiple frameworks, it just restricts the team and forcefully eliminates some powerful technologies just because it doesn’t support Java.

Cucumber provides better flexibility, is newer than JBehave, and is extensively developed to be at par with the latest frameworks working on BDD and Gherkin. However, a single problem that occurs with BDD is misunderstanding it as a testing tool and trying to use it for primary testing. It is just not meant for that. 

A lot of the testers raise concerns about Cucumber because of its high maintenance and multiple requests for rework. This is generally because testers try to test functionality whereas it was developed to get a clear understanding of the behavior of the application. Its creator emphasizes how Cucumber stories are meant to provide a clear overview of the behavior to the non-technical stakeholders who can easily understand it and provide their input before actual test cases are scripted using TDD.

This doubles up the testing efforts and the time testers invest in testing. Testsigma provides a platform that takes English-based test cases (similar to Gherkin) and does not require additional work. It is a major point of differentiation when one compares Cucumber and Testsigma. 

Testsigma does not need a programming language and comes as a complete package and not just a single framework for one particular type of testing. Moreover, the team gets real devices to run their tests on with artificial intelligence. Honestly, a team does not lose anything when working with Testsigma. If anything, they make their testing cycles independent of a lot of elements, helping elevate the efficiency and quality of the application without compromising on the timelines.

Conclusion

JBehave and Cucumber are two testing frameworks that work towards the same goal with almost similar methodologies. They use Gherkin and apply BDD to understand the behavior of the application but with a twist of their own. However, the fact is, that for someone looking to adopt a complete tool that has all the elements of testing, both of them are not the correct answer to them. Surely they can be used in addition to other tools, but their power is incomplete with an add-on tool like Selenium or TDD-based tools.

In this post, we introduced Testsigma and how it stands in comparison to both of these frameworks. If not adopted directly, we do think it is worth a try to understand how low-code platforms can illustrate their powers without depending on anything.

Indeed, the question of JBehave vs Cucumber will always linger around in the minds of testers when they need a BDD tool, especially with Java. However, we believe that when that question pops up, this post will help you make a clear distinction and select the most appropriate tool.  

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between SpecFlow and Cucumber?

While SpecFlow and Cucumber are both BDD-based frameworks, the main difference between them is that SpecFlow is based on .NET framework while Cucumber supports multiple other languages. It is similar to how JBehave differentiates from Cucumber as it supports only Java.