Difference between junit-vintage-engine and junit-jupiter-engine?

Question

It's a two-fold question.

1. What is the difference between junit-vintage-engine and junit-jupiter-engine?
2. SpringBoot starter projects come with an exclusion for junit-vintage-engine. Is it to enforce the use of junit-jupiter-engine?

Below is the dependency of my SpringBoot project generated from Spring Initializr:

        <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.junit.vintage</groupId>
                <artifactId>junit-vintage-engine</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

Answer 1

junit-vintage-engine is used for running JUnit 4 tests; junit-jupiter-engine for JUnit 5 tests.

Presumably since you'll be writing only JUnit 5 tests for a new Spring Boot project, the vintage engine won't be needed, hence the default dependency exclusion in the POM.

Reference:

https://junit.org/junit5/docs/current/user-guide

Answer 2

Answer : 1. Based on reading i found some difference like,

junit-vintage-engine :

• Used in Junit-4 Testing.
• Used to call core classes and annotations.
• 'Assert' which provide assertion methods for performing test.
• 'Assume' used to place assumptions.
• Use annotation like, @Ignore, @Before, etc...

junit-jupiter-engine :

• Used in Junit-5 Testing
• Provide some API which helpful to write test cases.
• 'Assertions' provides utility methods of assertion condition for testing.
• 'Assumptions' - utility method provide condition based on assumption.
• Change the bit of annotation name like, @Disable, @BeforeAll, @BeforeEach, etc...

Answer : 2. I'm also amazed they are still providing older vintage library probably there is some reason which i don't know till now but based on current usage we'll see that in next update.

Have a nice day!!! :)

Answer 3

First question is also related with the version of JDK. To be able to use jupiter engine, you must have Java 8 or higher. For second question; since the vintage engine is for JUnit4 and JUnit4 is greater than 10 years old, it is not recommended to be used. As far as I know, it has not been updated along this time although java has been evolved so much. I think that is why spring initializers enforce the use of junit-jupiter-engine.