Hardhat vs Foundry

You can read the full article for this project in the Chainstack blog

This repository contains two similar projects built with Hardhat and Foundry.

Differences

Foundry Hardhat
Installation via CLI curl command not required with NPX, or via NPM
CLI tools forge to manage the project (build/compile) & cast to interact with smart contracts hardhat manage the project (build/compile/run scripts)
Build & test performance 💨💨💨💨💨 🐢🐢
Configuration file foundry.toml hardhat.config.js
Allows project folder configuration Yes, in foundry.toml file Yes, in hardhat.config.js file
Dependency management GitHub submodules (any repository) NPM packages
Dependencies file .gitmodules package.json
Files included in sample project empty smart contract and basic test Greeter smart contract (with set/get methods), test files and script to run locally
Test file format Solidity contracts JavaScript test files
Test assertion library (default) ds-test Mocha
Allows to alter blockchain status (time, block) in tests Yes via cheatcodes Limited, via mainnet forking.
Allows run specific tests? Yes via --match-test --match-contract Yes via "only" or "skip" in test files
Contract deployments Via forge CLI or Bash scripts (new solutions in progress) Via JS scripts
Blockchain / contracts interaction via Cast CLI tool N/A

Default project structure vs Hardhat

Files Foundry Hardhat
Contract files /src /contracts
Test files /src/test /test
Output /out /artifacts
Dependencies /lib /node_modules

Testing with Foundry

Pros Cons Neither
No async/await Test names not as descriptive as in JS tests tests writen in solidity
Tests require less code Cheats are difficult to understand at first
Tests run super fast expectRevert assertion is weird
Auto-generated gas report testFail only tests if the test fails, not if the error is what we expect