.NET unit test frameworks overview

In .NET we have 3 dominant unit test frameworks:

• MS Test

• NUnit

• xUnit

First one comes with Visual Studio, two other requires additional components installation.

Unit Testing Frameworks Comparison

	NUnit	xUnit.net	MSTest
Introduction	actually ported from a Java testing framework named “JUnit”. It’s a mature framework with a long history started from JUnit since 1998.	relatively new testing framework, written by original inventor of NUnit v2.	The evolution of Microsoft's Test Framework
Source Code	https://github.com/nunit/nunit	https://github.com/xunit/xunit	https://github.com/Microsoft/testfx
Supported Platforms	– .NET Framework 2.0+ – .NET Standard 1.6+ – .NET Core	– .NET 4.5.2 + – .NET Core 2.1+	– .NET 4.5.0+ – .NET Core 1.0+ (Universal Windows Apps 10+, DNX Core 5+) – ASP.NET Core 1.0+
.Net Core Support	YES	YES	YES
IDE Tools Support	Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Resharper	Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Resharper	Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Resharper
CI Tools Support	TeamCity, VSTS, MSBuild, CuiseControl.net, Bamboo, Jenkins	TeamCity, VSTS, MSBuild, CuiseControl.net, Bamboo, Jenkins	TeamCity, VSTS, MSBuild, CuiseControl.net, Bamboo, Jenkins
Parallel Execution	YES	YES	YES
Execution Isolation Level	Per test class	Per test method	Per test class
Extensible Test Attributes	NO (Test and TestCase attributes are sealed)	YES (Theory and Fact attributes are extensible)	No
Documentation	Highly documented	Not too much	Documented Well

Unit Testing Implementation Comparison

	xUnit Test	MS Test	NUnit Test
Class	No	[TestClass]	[TestFixture]
Single Test Case	[Fact]	[TestMethod]	[Test]
Multi-Data	[Theory] [InlineData]	[DataTestMethod] [DataRow]	[TestCase]
Repeat Initialization for each Test	Ctor, IDisposable	[TestInitialize] [TestCleanup]	[SetUp] [TearDown]
One Time initialization for all tests in one class.	[MemberData] Or [ClassData] Method Member (may Property Member)	[ClassInitialize] [ClassCleanup]	[OneTimeSetUp] [OneTimeTearDown]
One Time initialization for all tests in one assembly	[MemberData] Or [ClassData] Property Member	[TestClass] + [AssemblyInitialize] [AssemblyCleanup]	Dedicated class with [SetUpFixture] + [OneTimeSetUp] [OneTimeTearDown]