What are the main benefits of using Cucumber?

Cucumber's core benefit is that a single .feature file works as both an automated test and documentation a non-engineer can read, because scenarios are written in Gherkin's Given/When/Then syntax instead of code. The tool ships official implementations for Ruby, the JVM (Java, Kotlin, Scala), and JavaScript/Node, so the same scenario format works across different codebases.

What does that mean in practice?

Because scenarios read like plain English, product owners, QA, and business stakeholders can review and agree on acceptance criteria before anyone writes automation code. Gherkin also ships with keywords in dozens of spoken languages, so a Portuguese-speaking business analyst and an English-speaking developer can each write in their own language and still produce a file Cucumber can run. The file a stakeholder signs off on is the same file the test runner executes, so there is no separate translation step between what the team agreed to build and what gets tested.

Where does this pay off most?

The benefit is strongest on projects where requirements come from non-technical stakeholders and need sign-off before development, such as checkout flows, approval workflows, or anything governed by detailed business rules. It matters less for testing that never needs a shared readable spec, like unit-level logic or internal utility functions.

What's the trade-off?

Cucumber does not run assertions or drive a browser on its own. It still needs step definitions written in real code and, for UI testing, a driver like Selenium or Playwright behind it. Teams get the readability benefit, but they maintain an extra layer, the Gherkin files plus the glue code, instead of writing tests directly.