Both tools drove the same journey through the same release APK:
| Maestro | Detox | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence, stars (Sep 2026) | Apache 2.0, about 15,800 | MIT, about 12,000 |
| Model | black box: the accessibility tree | gray box: code inside the app |
| Waiting | retries each step until a timeout | waits until the app is idle |
| Tests written in | YAML flows | JavaScript on Jest 62,362 |
| App changes | none | config plugin, test APK |
| Apps it can test | any Android or iOS app | React Native 36,878 apps |
| BookNest's journey after launch | 54 s | 7.3 s |
Detox's idle-waiting is also its trap: an app that never goes idle (a polling timer, a looping animation, a long-lived connection) makes every step wait until it times out, and you must tell Detox what to ignore. Maestro never knows whether the app is busy, so it is slower but tolerant of apps it knows nothing about. Choose Maestro first for an Expo 6,418 app: the Expo docs and EAS 6,418 Workflows use it, testers who do not write JavaScript can read a flow, and it needs no native changes. Choose Detox when your team already lives in Jest or the app is full of animations. Either way, keep end-to-end tests few and aimed at the journeys that pay the bills.