SpecFlow is Dying. Another Prediction of Mine Proven Correct
It’s quite intriguing that Tricentis made its announcement just one day after SmartBear decided to give up on Cucumber.
On January 15, 2020. “Tricentis announced that it has acquired SpecFlow, the biggest and most trusted BDD solution for .NET”.
It was a big mistake as I pointed out years ago “Gherkins frameworks (Cucumber, SpecFlow) are no good for real E2E test automation”. I will show proof shortly, but let’s see the recent news first.
Astute readers might notice that different from SpecFlow acquisition, "SpecFlow end of life” does not make it to the news section, just a support update. Why? It is too embarrassing for Tricentis’ mangement. How could a large software testing vendor company make such an obvious mistake? Its claim that “the leader in continuous testing for DevOps” certainly is false.
The date, 2024-12-20, is rather interesting, one day after SmartBear gave up Cucumber.
My guess is that Tricentis management felt a sense of relief seeing SmartBear management finally giving up Cucumber. Oh well, it’s like saying, “We did the same."
It’s disappointing that neither software testing company has openly acknowledged their failures or held anyone accountable for those silly mistakes. It’s evident that there were senior executives and technical engineers in these organizations who lacked a fundamental understanding of end-to-end test automation.
Some new-to-my-newsletter readers might say, “Zhimin, SmartBear and Tricentis on this BDD, surely. But how can we be sure you weren’t one of those who followed the same path before, only to criticize it now?”.
I listed facts to support my statements in my articles.
I predicted the outcome of Gherkin Use in E2E Test Automation, check out the following article I published a few years ago.
In terms of SpecFlow. Some readers know that I published a test automation book on C# ( and several on other languages).
I’ve received multiple consulting and training requests for implementing end-to-end test automation using C#. I recommended they use RSpec instead. A few asked for my thoughts on using SpecFlow, to which I responded, 'Stay away from SpecFlow,' and shared a link to my article: Why Gherkin (Cucumber, SpecFlow,…) Always Fails with UI Test Automation?"
Some argumentative readers might think, “Zhimin, you are showing evidence that after Tricentis acquired SpecFlow (in 2019)”. Oh well, before my post on LinkedIn (September 2020), I have been recommending RSpec over Cucumber in my first book: “Practical Web Test Automation” (since 2009).
This poor decision to acquire SpecFlow not only cost Tricentis an estimated X million dollars, but also damaged Tricentis’ reputation. This expensive mistake could be avoided by seeking advice from a real E2E test automation mentor.
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