Why Gherkin (Cucumber, SpecFlow,…) Always Failed with UI Test Automation?

Avoid this recipe for test automation failure. Use RSpec instead.

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This article is one of the “Be aware of Fake Test Automation/DevOps Engineers” series.

Update 2023–05–01: Matt Wynne — the last of Cucumber’s co-founders got fired. That raised questions about the project’s future, such as “Cucumber is dead” discussion on Reddit. This article is another proof of my correct predictions, so-called popular but bad proposals for end-to-end test automation, including Phantom.js, Protractor, and Cypress.

Many software projects tried or are trying to use Cucumber for test automation, commonly with Selenium Driver for testing web apps. Some might wonder whether my title is just a personal and radical view for attention. No, I just reworded the view from Aslak Hellesøy, the creator of Cucumber:

“So really, what is Cucumber? As a test tool it sucks. There far better automated test tools” (source)

Some Gherkin fans may say: “this might be one mis-comment”. Oh well, here is another one on Aslak’s home age.

“If all you need is a testing tool for driving a mouse and a keyboard, don’t use…