Pest vs pytest
Pest
pestphp.compytest
pytest.orgSide by side
| Figure | Pest | pytest |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Unit Testing | 8.3 (#5) | 7.4 (#20) |
| Spec score · Unit Testing Frameworks | 8.2 (#7) | 7.4 (#26) |
| Install | Pest is installed in a PHP project as a Composer development dependency. | The getting-started guide installs pytest with the command pip install -U pytest. |
| Integrations | Pest's team-maintained plugins include Faker, Laravel, and Livewire. | The documentation describes loading external plugins, including pytest-cov, and pytest can be invoked from Python code. |
| Intended users | The maker describes Pest as a testing framework for PHP developers and AI agents. | pytest is described for testing applications and libraries, and its enterprise support offer is aimed at organizations using open source dependencies to build applications. |
| Purpose | Pest is a PHP testing framework for developers and AI agents. | pytest is a framework for writing small, readable tests that can scale to complex functional testing for applications and libraries. |
| Security | The homepage shows a security architecture testing preset, but the opened maker pages did not state a security certification or compliance standard. | The project asks users to report suspected security vulnerabilities through a new GitHub security advisory instead of creating an issue. |
| 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| Pest's maintainers say they cannot guarantee a fixed bug resolution time or a fix for every issue; bug fixes for outdated versions are available for 12 months after the latest version's release. | The project directs users to GitHub issues for bugs and feature requests and offers commercial support and maintenance through Tidelift Subscription. |
Plans
In their own words
Pest
Pest is a free PHP testing framework for developers and AI agents, installed in a PHP project as a Composer development dependency. Pest 5 requires PHP 8.4 or later. It supports parallel execution, coverage, mutation and snapshot testing, profiling, architectural testing and browser testing. Its Browser plugin uses Playwright for page interactions, while the Agent plugin lets coding agents run one-off application checks and can drive a real browser when the Browser plugin is installed. Pest Evals combines deterministic tests with AI-powered scorers for evaluating LLM output. The Tia Engine reruns tests affected by recent changes and requires PCOV or Xdebug as a coverage driver. Pest 5 includes PHPStan and Rector plugins; team-maintained plugins include Faker, Laravel and Livewire. JetBrains maintains the PhpStorm plugin, included by default since version 2023.3. Pest supports parameterized cases but does not include built-in mocks. Its maintainers say bug fixes for outdated major versions are available for 12 months after the latest version's release, without a guaranteed resolution time or fix for every issue.