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Tech riderRev. 5 Oct 2026

Pest

Ch 146.2of 32 Unit Testing Frameworks
  1. 1Runs onLinux, Mac, self-hosted, Windows
  2. 2CostsFree plan
  3. 3Supported languagesPHP
  4. 4Built-in mocksNo
  5. 5Parameterized casesYes
  6. 6Parallel executionYes
  7. 7Snapshot testingYes
7 lines stated Written from the maker's own pages: pestphp.com
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The Pest homepage

Overview

Pest is ranked #14 of 32 in unit testing frameworks on Specifiction. It runs on Linux, macOS, Self-hosted, Windows. There is a free plan.

Pest plans and pricing

All plans
Pest Free Open-source PHP testing framework · Requires PHP 8.4+ for Pest 5 pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026

Compared on unit testing frameworks

Free plan
Yespestphp.com
Supported languages
PHPpestphp.com
Built-in mocks
Nopestphp.com
Parameterized cases
Yespestphp.com
Parallel execution
Yespestphp.com
Snapshot testing
Yespestphp.com

Facts

Purpose
Pest is a PHP testing framework for developers and AI agents.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Install
Pest is installed in a PHP project as a Composer development dependency.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
PHP requirement
Pest 5 requires PHP 8.4 or greater.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Testing features
Pest lists parallel execution, browser testing, profiling, architectural testing, coverage, mutation testing, and optional plugins among its features.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Browser testing
The Browser plugin uses Playwright to run browser tests that can interact with pages, including clicking buttons and filling forms.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
AI agent checks
The Agent plugin lets coding agents run one-off verifications against an application using Pest tests and can drive a real browser when the Browser plugin is installed.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
AI evaluations
Pest Evals can combine deterministic checks with AI-powered scorers to assess LLM output from a test suite.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Test impact analysis
The Tia Engine reruns tests affected by recent changes and requires PCOV or Xdebug as a code coverage driver.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Integrations
Pest's team-maintained plugins include Faker, Laravel, and Livewire.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
PHP tooling
Pest 5 includes first-party plugins for PHPStan and Rector, and its release page describes time-balanced sharding for CI machines.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Security testing
Pest's Evals documentation describes a toBeSafe() scorer for checking whether an AI agent resists prompt injection.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Support
Pest's maintainers say they cannot guarantee a fixed bug resolution time or a fix for every issue; bug fixes for outdated versions are available for 12 months after the latest version's release.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Who it is for
Pest says it is suitable for small personal projects and large-scale enterprise applications.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Maker
The site describes Pest as a PestPHP project by Nuno Maduro.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Test features
Pest includes parallel execution, coverage, mutation testing, and snapshots.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
LLM evaluations
Evals use ordinary Pest tests and can apply AI-powered scorers to responses.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Editor integration
JetBrains maintains the Pest plugin for PhpStorm, where it has been included by default since version 2023.3.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Framework integrations
The Pest 5 Tia Engine documentation says it detects Laravel, Symfony, Livewire, Inertia, and browser assets automatically via Composer.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Support policy
Pest says bug fixes for outdated major versions are available for 12 months after the latest version's release, with no fixed resolution time or guaranteed fix for every issue.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Security
The homepage shows a security architecture testing preset, but the opened maker pages did not state a security certification or compliance standard.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026
Intended users
The maker describes Pest as a testing framework for PHP developers and AI agents.pestphp.com · 5 Oct 2026

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Where it ranks on Specifiction

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Sources