Experimental comparison of automated mutation testing tools for java

Mutation testing has been used to evaluate the quality of the test set and provides the confidence in testing activity. Generation as well as running of mutants needs practice. A huge amount of mutants are generated and therefore, it is a very costly activity in terms of time and effort. Automatic mutant generation and execution is essential to support testing. Automation achieves more attention, saves time and effort as developers and testers use automated tools. In the recent years, researchers have found that practitioners have diminutive knowledge about tools and their effectiveness. This paper compares five well-known publicly accessible mutation testing tools: `MuClipse´, `Judy´, `Jumble´, `Jester´ and PIT. This comparison uses a collection of Java classes taken from various easily accessible sources. Tests were designed and generated with the help of test generation techniques. The performance of each mutation tool was analyzed and was compared based on their mutation operators, mutation score and execution time.