What are the differences between using Nightwatch.js vs Protractor

Question

What are the differences? What are the advantages of using one over the other for an Angular project?

Nightwatch.js vs Protractor

Answer 1

There are a few more differences that weren't laid out in the top answer.

The big one for me is, as of now, protractor doesn't support phantomJS (http://www.protractortest.org/#/browser-setup#setting-up-phantomjs). I planned on integrating automation in to the CI system, but with protractor I would have to set up a windows VM to run the tests.

Other benefits of nightwatch:

• Asserts are done automatically.
• Clean console output, you could hand off to anyone.
• Test reports are automatically generated and saved to a /reports directory.

Protractor pros:

• The angular-specific locators that protractor supports is very powerful and could help immensely with creating stable tests.
• WaitForAngular is also very helpful.

EDIT: Since the time I wrote this comment and present day our team has happily switched over to using cypress.io. If you are deciding test frameworks I highly recommend checking it out: https://www.cypress.io/

Answer 2

If you are working on an AngularJS project, the choice is simple - Protractor:

• it is being made specifically for angular apps (though it can be used for non-angular apps also)
  • supports angular-specific locator strategies (like by.model, by.repeater etc)
  • waits for angular to start up during the page load (sync)
• it is being actively maintained and improved mostly by google developers with a close cooperation with an angular team - this means that protractor follows the angular release cycle and new changes