What is the difference between the Maven Surefire and Maven Failsafe plugins?

In simple words, the Failsafe plugin is designed to run integration tests while Surefire to run unit tests.

This is further explained in Maven FAQ:

• maven-surefire-plugin is designed for running unit tests and if any of the tests fail then it will fail the build immediately.

• maven-failsafe-plugin is designed for running integration tests, and decouples failing the build if there are test failures from actually running the tests.

  The name "failsafe" was chosen both because it is a synonym of surefire and because it implies that when it fails, it does so in a safe way.

  The Failsafe Plugin has two goals:

  • failsafe:integration-test runs the integration tests of an application,
  • failsafe:verify verifies that the integration tests of an application passed.

See also:

• Benefits of Maven FailSafe Plugin at SO

From https://maven.apache.org/surefire/maven-failsafe-plugin/, I would say that the difference between Surefire and Failsafe is the way they fail:

If you use the Surefire Plugin for running tests, then when you have a test failure, the build will stop at the integration-test phase and your integration test environment will not have been torn down correctly.

The Failsafe Plugin is used during the integration-test and verify phases of the build lifecycle to execute the integration tests of an application. The Failsafe Plugin will not fail the build during the integration-test phase, thus enabling the post-integration-test phase to execute.