Pest wraps PHPUnit with an expressive, function-based syntax. test('it sums numbers', fn() => expect(1 + 1)->toBe(2)); reads like documentation.
Existing PHPUnit tests continue to work — Pest runs on top of the same engine. You can adopt it gradually file-by-file.
Plugins cover parallel execution, mutation testing, and architecture rules. The mutation plugin is particularly useful for verifying that tests actually exercise the code they claim to cover.