protostar vs nile

This repository aims at comparing 2 development frameworks for starknet smart contract development:

• protostar
• nile

You can see the results of the comparision below or jump to any subject for more details.

Table of contents

1. Installation
2. Project initialization
3. Compilation
4. Unit testing
   1. Assertions
   2. Mocking
   3. Debugging
5. Deployment
6. Performances

Conclusion

Here is the full list of comparisons:

Step	nile	protostar
1. Installation	✔️ isolated in a python virtual env ❌ cairo-lang is not compatible with latest python, requires a dedicated setup	✔️ one-liner installation script
2. Project initialization	✔️ one-liner to initialize a project ✔️ install all required dependencies ✔️ generate .gitignore and Makefile	✔️ one-liner to initialize a project ❌ forces the generation of a git repository
3. Compilation	✔️ pretty output ✔️ all contracts are automatically detected ❌ compilation error messages are difficult to understand ❌ does not support multiple contracts with the same name ❌ requires a pip module to use an external library	❌ need to provide all contract files in protostar.toml ❌ compilation error messages are difficult to understand ❌ requires a git repository to use an external library
4.1. Unit testing - Assertions	✔️ relies on proven pytest framework ✔️ all the power of python ❌ need to be familiar with python ❌ need to explicitely deploy the contract to test it	✔️ uses same language as smart contract development ✔️ can still use python hints to manipulate data or perform assertions ✔️ nice output
4.2. Unit testing - Mocking	❌ no built-in mocking strategy	✔️ built-in mocking cheat code ✔️ manual mocking is still possible ✔️ mocking of blockchain data using cheat codes ❌ cannot mock function calls based on parameters
4.3. Unit testing - Debugging	❌ no extra tool to help unit test debugging	✔️ usage of hints are very useful for debugging purposes
5. Deployment	✔️ several useful commands to deploy and interact with a contract ✔️ support of a local node using starknet-devnet	✔️ support of contract deployment ❌ lack of local devnet
6. Performances	❌ Compilation: 35s ❌ Test: 1min 29s	✔️ Compilation: 17s ✔️ Test: 35s

As a conclusion, protostar offers more features during the development life cycle and is also way faster. Which is a nice advantage especially when using TDD.

nile, on the other hand, offers more feature during the deployment, especially thanks to its compatibility with starknet-devnet for running a local node.

Let's see how both projects evolve in the future and if more features are added.