Glossary
Hardhat
The JavaScript-based EVM development environment — the dominant tool through 2022 and still widely used for its plugin ecosystem and TypeScript-friendly workflow.
Hardhat (by Nomic Foundation) provides a local EVM, a task runner, and a plugin ecosystem that drove the rise of professional Solidity tooling. Tests are written in JavaScript or TypeScript using ethers.js or viem, with mocha or vitest as the runner.
Foundry overtook Hardhat in raw speed and Solidity-native testing, but Hardhat remains widely used — especially in projects that need its plugin ecosystem (etherscan verification, gas reporting, upgrades, typechain) or that prefer JavaScript test code. Hardhat 3 launched in 2024 with major rewrites in Rust under the hood.