// the find
lukeed/uvu
uvu is an extremely fast and lightweight test runner for Node.js and the browser
uvu is a minimal test runner for Node.js and the browser, built for speed. It's for developers who find Jest's startup overhead annoying and want something closer to bare Node execution — test files run as plain scripts, no magic loader required.
The startup performance is real: 72ms total vs 962ms for Jest on the same suite. Each test file is independently executable with plain `node`, which makes debugging a failing test trivial. Native ESM support is first-class, not bolted on. The dependency graph is tiny — this won't bloat your node_modules or introduce transitive CVEs.
No built-in watch mode worth using in CI — the docs mention it but the implementation is thin. No snapshot testing beyond string comparison, so React component or complex object snapshots require another tool. The project has been effectively unmaintained since mid-2024 with 3k stars and only 101 forks — open issues get no response. TypeScript support requires manual setup through loader flags, which breaks on newer Node versions without careful version pinning.