head to head · open source
cypress vs jest
cypress has 51,045 GitHub stars, 3,646 forks, 1,084 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jest has 45,560 stars, 6,734 forks, 228 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cypress leads on adoption by 12% (51,045 vs 45,560 stars). cypress is written in TypeScript under MIT; jest is written in TypeScript under MIT. cypress has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, jest 15%. jest was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| cypress | jest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 51K | ★ 46K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.6K | ⑂ 6.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cypress if
- You weight community size — 51K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick jest if
- You want the jest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and jest fits your workflow better
About cypress
Cypress is a fast, easy and reliable testing framework for anything that runs in a browser, distributed as an MIT licensed TypeScript project on npm and aimed at front end developers and QA engineers who need to test web applications.
read the full cypress overview →
About jest
Jest is a delightful, developer ready JavaScript testing framework for writing and running tests in JavaScript and TypeScript projects.
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Frequently asked questions
Is cypress or jest more popular?
cypress has 51,045 GitHub stars and jest has 45,560. cypress has the larger community by that measure.
Are cypress and jest free?
Both are open source. cypress is licensed under MIT and jest under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cypress and jest?
cypress is written in TypeScript and jest in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, cypress or jest?
Choose cypress if you want the larger community (51,045 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose jest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.