Mutant vs PIT

Mutant is Ruby mutation-testing software that changes code in controlled ways to check whether tests catch the changes. It alters arithmetic, logical and bitwise operators, removes statements, and changes return values. It works with RSpec, Minitest and Test::Unit, and supports incremental runs for CI. Supported Ruby versions are 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 and 4.0 for runtime, syntax and mutations. Rails support is verified for versions 7.2, 8.0 and 8.1, with parallel-worker database isolation for PostgreSQL and SQLite. Mutant runs on developers’ machines or in CI, and includes parallel execution and reports of surviving mutants. It cannot generate mutations for methods defined inside closures, including methods created with module_eval, class_eval, define_method or define_singleton_method. The open-source plan is free for public repositories with the full feature set. Commercial monthly pricing is $30 a month per developer; yearly pricing is $250 a year per developer. CI use requires no additional subscriptions.

PIT is a free mutation-testing tool for Java and JVM bytecode projects. It measures whether unit tests detect faults by running them against modified versions of application code. Configurable bytecode mutations can remove method calls, invert logic, or change return values. PIT selects and prioritizes tests using line coverage, execution speed, and naming conventions, then reports mutation coverage alongside line coverage. It can run from the command line, Ant, or Maven; third-party integrations are listed for Gradle, Eclipse, and IntelliJ. Java is supported directly, and Kotlin use is available through the ArcMutate plugin. PIT supports JUnit 3, JUnit 4, and TestNG; JUnit 5 needs a plugin. Versions 1.4.0 and later require Java 8 or above and JUnit or TestNG on the classpath. Mutation runs can take a long time depending on codebase size and test-suite speed, so PIT recommends focusing on changed code. It mutates bytecode and requires line numbers and source file names in that bytecode.