--- title: "Comparing C++ unit testing frameworks" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/12/29/comparing-c-unit-testing-frameworks.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/12/29/comparing-c-unit-testing-frameworks.html" published: "2004-12-29T22:11:00" updated: "2004-12-29T22:11:00" tags: ["Agile Related", "Cool Articles"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Noel Llopis writes on the TDD mailing list: I just had to choose a unit-testing framework for a new project at work, so I went ahead and evaluated some of the major contenders for C++: CppUnit, Boost.Test, CppUnitLite,…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Comparing C++ unit testing frameworks By Roy Osherove December 29, 2004 In [Agile Related](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile-related), [Cool Articles](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-articles) **Historical article** · Originally published December 29, 2004; technical details may be outdated. Noel Llopis writes on the TDD mailing list: _I just had to choose a unit-testing framework for a new project at work, so I went ahead and evaluated some of the major contenders for C++: CppUnit, Boost.Test, CppUnitLite, NanoCppUnit, Unit++, and CxxUnit._ _If anybody is interested in checking it out, I wrote a comparison of the frameworks and my conclusions here: _[_http://www.gamesfromwithin.com/articles/0412/000061.html_](http://www.gamesfromwithin.com/articles/0412/000061.html) _I welcome any comments either through the list, private email, or directly in the blog. Cheers._ _\--Noel Games from Within _[_http://www.gamesfromwithin.com_](http://www.gamesfromwithin.com/) I haven't read it all through yet, but it seems pretty comprehensive and interesting. **The big winner** in this article is a total surprise: [CxxTest](http://cxxtest.sourceforge.net/). What's the big surprise? It actually uses PERL under the convers to provide an easy to use syntax that is used as the basis for generating C++ test classes on your code. Pretty cool, actually. Here's a part on this cool finding from the article: _"After looking into a framework that tried to be different from XUnit (Unit++), I wasn't particularly looking forward to evaluating possibly the most wacky one of them all, CxxTest. I had never heard of it until a few days ago, but I knew that it required using Perl along the way to generate some C++ code. My spider senses were tingling._ _Boy was I wrong!! Within minutes of using CxxTest and reading through its great documentation (the best by far), I was completely convinced this was the way to go. This came as a complete surprise to me since I was ready to leave somewhat dissatisfied and pronounce a victor between CppUnit and CppUnitLite."_ ## More in Agile Related [All posts in Agile Related](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile-related) - Jan 5, 2005 ### [Zanebug v1.4.3 - a better NUnit GUI?](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/1/5/zanebug-v143-a-better-nunit-gui.html) - Jan 1, 2005 ### [The case for staged delivery and Agile methodologies](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/1/1/the-case-for-staged-delivery-and-agile-methodologies.html) - Dec 10, 2004 ### [I changed my mind - Mock objects are wrong for database unit testing](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/12/10/i-changed-my-mind-mock-objects-are-wrong-for-database-unit-t.html) - Dec 7, 2004 ### [MSF is a fraud? A response](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/12/7/msf-is-a-fraud-a-response.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/