Gambit vs Mutatest

Gambit is a free, open-source mutation testing tool for Solidity projects. It generates altered contract versions, called mutants, to measure whether a test suite or formal verification specification detects faults. Gambit locates mutation points by traversing a program’s abstract syntax tree and applying predefined syntax transformations. A declarative configuration language lets users tailor mutations to specific parts of a program. Results can be viewed in a dashboard that summarizes mutant verification and calculates a specification score. Gambit can work with the Certora Prover to evaluate formal specifications; that workflow generates mutants and submits a verification job for each to Certora’s server. The command line includes `mutate` for generating mutants and `summary` for presenting them. A compatible `solc` binary is required for the project being mutated. Gambit supports Solidity and is listed for Linux, macOS, and Windows, though prebuilt binaries are available for Linux x86-64 and Mac; Windows and Linux ARM users must build from source. Function-call and swap-arguments-function mutation operators are disabled. The repository identifies the license as MIT. Certora directs product questions to its Help Desk channel on Discord.

Mutatest is a free command-line tool for Python projects that checks whether tests catch small changes to code. It creates valid mutations from Python’s Abstract Syntax Tree grammar and applies them to local __pycache__ files rather than changing source files. If coverage data is available, it can limit targets to lines marked as covered. Mutations are sampled randomly, with a seed available to make runs reproducible. Command-line controls include run modes, mutation categories, file exclusions, timeouts, reports, and thresholds for surviving mutants; an API supports custom controls. The documentation describes using test commands such as pytest and coverage data to filter targets. Mutatest can raise an exception when surviving mutants meet a configured threshold, including in automated runs such as CI. It supports Linux, macOS, and Windows, and is free under the MIT License. Installation requires Python 3.7 or 3.8; multiprocessing is available on 3.8, but not 3.7. Repeated test runs can be slow, so it is intended for diagnostics rather than every commit across an entire codebase.