JUnit 5 is an upgrade of JUnit 4 with an entirely separate codebase. It brings the following main features:

• Java 8 Support

  The new assert methods now uses functional parameters hence utilizing Java 8 lambdas for testing. JUnit 5 requires Java 8 (or higher) runtime. The code compiled in previous version of Java can still run with JUnit 5.
  
  

• Modules

  Unlike previous versions, JUnit 5 is composed of several different modules:
  • JUnit Platform: It is JUnit core which allows test execution.
  • JUnit Jupiter: JUnit 5 API (new) and a combination of new programming model and extension model for writing tests.
  • JUnit Vintage: It provides a TestEngine which bridges JUnit 3/JUnit 4 tests to JUnit 5 platform. This means previous versions of JUnit can coexist with JUnit 5.
  
  
  

• Extension Model

  JUnit 5 is a complete redesign. In contrast to the older Runner, @Rule, and @ClassRule concepts, the JUnit Jupiter extension model consists of a single, coherent concept: the Extension API. The new model resolves various shortcomings of older versions.
  
  

We will explore above features in details in future tutorials. Following is a JUnit 5 quick getting started example.

Example

Maven Dependency

pom.xml

<dependency>
   <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
   <artifactId>junit-jupiter-engine</artifactId>
   <version>6.0.1</version>
</dependency>

The above dependency also pulls the JUnit 5's platform and Jupiter API dependencies.

A Java class to test

package com.logicbig.example;

public class Calc {
  public int multiply(int a, int b) {
      return a * b;
  }
}

Writing tests

package com.logicbig.example;

import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;

public class CalcTest {
  @Test
  public void testMultiply() {
      Calc c = new Calc();
      int x = 3;
      int y = 5;
      int expected = 15;
      int actual = c.multiply(x, y);
      Assertions.assertEquals(expected, actual,
              () -> String.format("%s * %s != %s", x, y, expected));
  }
}

As seen above, the utility class Assertions has replaced the old org.junit.Assert class. Assertions has various methods which accept Java 8 functional parameters (lambdas). We can see the advantage of initializing the error message lazily (only when the assertion fails) by using Java 8 lambda. Following is the method definition which we used above:

public static void assertEquals(int expected,
                                int actual,
                                Supplier<String> messageSupplier)

Running the test

Running in Intellij

Running in maven

mvn test -Dtest=CalcTest

Output

D:\example-projects\junit-5\junit-5-getting-started>mvn test -Dtest=CalcTest
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] 
[INFO] ------------< com.logicbig.example:junit-5-getting-started >------------
[INFO] Building junit-5-getting-started 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO]   from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ junit-5-getting-started ---
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (Cp1252 actually) to copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory D:\example-projects\junit-5\junit-5-getting-started\src\main\resources
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- compiler:3.3:compile (default-compile) @ junit-5-getting-started ---
[INFO] Changes detected - recompiling the module!
[INFO] Compiling 1 source file to D:\example-projects\junit-5\junit-5-getting-started\target\classes
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:testResources (default-testResources) @ junit-5-getting-started ---
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (Cp1252 actually) to copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory D:\example-projects\junit-5\junit-5-getting-started\src\test\resources
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- compiler:3.3:testCompile (default-testCompile) @ junit-5-getting-started ---
[INFO] Changes detected - recompiling the module!
[INFO] Compiling 1 source file to D:\example-projects\junit-5\junit-5-getting-started\target\test-classes
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- surefire:3.2.5:test (default-test) @ junit-5-getting-started ---
[INFO] Using auto detected provider org.apache.maven.surefire.junitplatform.JUnitPlatformProvider
[INFO] 
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]  T E S T S
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Running com.logicbig.example.CalcTest
[INFO] Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.057 s -- in com.logicbig.example.CalcTest
[INFO] 
[INFO] Results:
[INFO] 
[INFO] Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO] 
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  6.961 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2025-11-29T08:23:46+08:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Example Project

Dependencies and Technologies Used:

• junit-jupiter-engine 6.0.1 (Module "junit-jupiter-engine" of JUnit)
   Version Compatibility: 5.0.0 - 6.0.1Version List
  ×

  Version compatibilities of junit-jupiter-engine with this example:

  • 5.0.0
  • 5.0.1
  • 5.0.2
  • 5.0.3
  • 5.1.0
  • 5.1.1
  • 5.2.0
  • 5.3.0
  • 5.3.1
  • 5.3.2
  • 5.4.0
  • 5.4.1
  • 5.4.2
  • 5.5.0
  • 5.5.1
  • 5.5.2
  • 5.6.0
  • 5.6.1
  • 5.6.2
  • 5.6.3
  • 5.7.0
  • 5.7.1
  • 5.7.2
  • 5.8.0
  • 5.8.1
  • 5.8.2
  • 5.9.0
  • 5.9.1
  • 5.9.2
  • 5.9.3
  • 5.10.0
  • 5.10.1
  • 5.10.2
  • 5.10.3
  • 5.10.4
  • 5.10.5
  • 5.11.0
  • 5.11.1
  • 5.11.2
  • 5.11.3
  • 5.11.4
  • 5.12.0
  • 5.12.1
  • 5.12.2
  • 5.13.0
  • 5.13.1
  • 5.13.2
  • 5.13.3
  • 5.13.4
  • 5.14.0
  • 5.14.1
  • 6.0.0
  • 6.0.1

  Versions in green have been tested.

• JDK 25
• Maven 3.9.11