JavaScript Unit Testing - The Practical Guide (Udemy.com)
Learn how to write automated tests (unit & integration tests) for your JavaScript projects with Vitest & Jest.
Created by: Academind by Maximilian Schwarzmüller
Last updated January 2024
What you will learn
- Write and structure unit & integration tests
- Remove side effects from tests via mocking and spies
- Work with popular JavaScript test runners and libraries
- Write good tests and focus on testing core business logic
Course Description
Automated testing is a key concept in modern (web) development.
It is a concept that can be intimidating at first, hence many developers shy away from diving into testing and adding tests to their projects.
This course teaches you automated unit & integration testing with JavaScript from the ground up. You will learn how tests are written and added to your projects, what should (and should not) be tested and how you can test both simple as well as more complex code.
You will learn about the software and setup required to write automated tests and example projects will be provided as part of the course. It's a hands-on, practical course, hence you won't get stuck in theory - instead you'll be able to learn all key concepts at real examples.
In the course, Vitest will be used as the main testing library & tool. It's a modern JavaScript test runner and assertion library that provides Jest compatibility. Hence what you'll learn in this course will help you no matter if you're working with Vitest or Jest. And the core concepts will apply, no matter which testing setup you're using at all!
As part of this course, typical testing problems will be defined and solved and common strategies like mocking or working with spies are taught in great detail. This course also does not focus on specific types of JavaScript projects - neither does it focus on any specific library or framework.
Instead, you'll learn how to automatically test your (vanilla) JavaScript code, no matter if it's a NodeJS or frontend project. The fundamentals you'll gain in this course will help you in all your future projects - backend (NodeJS) and frontend (vanilla JS, React, Vue, Angular) alike.
This course will provide you with an extremely solid foundation to build up on, such that you can start adding tests to all your JavaScript projects.
In detail, this course will teach you:
What exactly "testing" or "automated testing" is (and why you need it)
What "unit testing" is specifically
Which tools you need to enable automated unit tests in your projects
How to write unit tests
How to get started with integration tests
How to formulate different expectations (assertions)
Which patterns to follow when writing tests
How to test asynchronous and synchronous code
How to deal with side effects with help of spies & mocks
How to apply all these concepts in real projects & examples
Instructor Details
- 4.7 Rating
5,424 Reviews
Academind by Maximilian Schwarzmüller
Bundling the courses and know how of successful instructors, Academind strives to deliver high quality online education.
Online Education, Real-Life Success - that's what Academind stands for. Learn topics like web development, data analyses and more in a fun and engaging way.
We've taught more than 3,000,000 students on a broad variety of topics. We'd love to teach you as well! :)
Keep learning!
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Reviews
By Matias Harding on 1/14/2026
Max explains things very clearly and very concisely, its easy to follow and easy to digest the material in a granular way, which helps a lot when theres not a lot of spare time to learn new things. PS: I got 4 or 5 of his courses already. (would love a Python course from him by the way)
By Zong-Rong Huang on 10/21/2025
It's a practical course that touches the very foundations of unit testing, with concise explanations and exercises. It also touches mocking and spying and how to do them using Vitest. Now I feel less confused about the two. Overall this course is quite well-organized and friendly to testing newbies with actionable demos.
By Piotr Młudzik on 10/17/2025
This is my second course by Maximilian Schwarzmüller, and once again, it’s excellent! The explanations are clear and well-structured, with a great balance between emphasizing the important concepts and skipping over the less relevant details. Max’s clear English and perfect intonation make learning much easier and more enjoyable. I’ll definitely come back for more of his courses!
By Jesus Alberto Lopez Galindo on 6/23/2025
Es un buen curso si no sabes ni siquiera que son las pruebas unitarias. Lo que no me gustó es que va muy rapido, eso no es problema en la mayoria de las secciones pero particularmente en la seccion 7 y 8 que en mi opinion son las más complejas, deberia bajar la velocidad y profundizar más en la explicación ya que es muy facil perderse y en mi opinion hizo falta mayor detalle en la explicación de estas 2 secciones.
By Matheus Cardoso on 4/20/2025
This course has been very helpful to me. When I saw a test code with Jest for the first time in a React course, it seemed very bewildering to me, but this course opened my mind to the amazing world of code testing. Thanks to the course's content and the instructor's didactic, I could understood how a testing flux works and how to write one. It will help me a lot in my career.
By Eduardo L on 4/28/2024
Good course to cover the basics. Hammers home the "need to practice" mantra. I think an awesome addition would be a further section where a non-trivial application was taken and the entire testing process was added, perhaps one of the apps from another academind course that goes beyone the basics, although this would add some hours to the course it would set it apart and above other jest/vitest offerings.
By Willian Bonni dos Santos Andrade on 1/11/2024
This was an excellent introduction to testing. I highly recommend it. Max is an excellent teacher and in this course he really focus on making sure you understand what testing is but, most importantly IMHO, what mocks are and how to create and use them. To me this was always a pain, I couldn't figure out how to use them effectively and how they really helped you get rid of side effects. Thanks to this and the further study I am doing on stubs, fakes, etc, I am getting the hang of it! Great course!
By Lucas Alves Costa on 4/22/2023
Já fiz vários cursos do Max e é sempre uma experiência boa porque ele tem uma ótima didática e as aulas são interessantes. Até pessoas com dificuldade com atenção conseguem ver as aulas até o final e compreender tudo. Mas atenção: o curso é todo em inglês. As legendas (também em inglês) e a boa pronúncia do Max ajudam, mas é preciso saber inglês.
By Rahul Rao on 7/30/2022
Great course indeed ! Max starts from the very basics of JavaScript testing and covers everything from the setup to the philosophy of testing. Explanations are also very clear and concise and it's overall a very good course to get introduced to unit and integration testing in JavaScript.
By Hexton Ho on 5/14/2022
Well-structured course with improved presentation style & slideshow. Hopefully, such improvement can be implemented in subsequent new/rework courses. Max did mention some extra points to avoid students' confusion, which happens a lot in the old course. Great improvement & keep it up!
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 94 / 100










