I have the following directory layout: runner.py lib/ tests/ testsuite1/ testsuite1.py testsuite2/ testsuite2.py testsuite3/ testsuite3.py testsuite4/ testsuite4.py The format of testsuite*.py modules is as follows: import pytest class testsomething: def setup_class(self): ''' do some setup ''' # Do some setup stuff here def teardown_class(self): '''' do some teardown''' # Do some teardown stuff here def test1(self): # Do some test1 related stuff def test2(self): # Do some test2 related stuff .... .... .... def test40(self): # Do some test40 related stuff if __name__=='__main()__' pytest.main(args=[os.path.abspath(__file__)]) The problem I have is that I would like to execute the 'testsuites' in parallel i.e. I want testsuite1, testsuite2, testsuite3 and testsuite4 to start execution in parallel but individual tests within the testsuites need to be executed serially. When I use the 'xdist' plugin from py.test and kick off the tests using 'py.test -n 4', py.test is gathering all the tests and randomly load balancing the tests among 4 workers. This leads to the 'setup_class' method to be executed every time of each test within a 'testsuitex.py' module (which defeats my purpose. I want setup_class to be executed only once per class and tests executed serially there after). Essentially what I want the execution to look like is: worker1: executes all tests in testsuite1.py serially worker2: executes all tests in testsuite2.py serially worker3: executes all tests in testsuite3.py serially worker4: executes all tests in testsuite4.py serially while worker1, worker2, worker3 and worker4 are all executed in parallel. Is there a way to achieve this in 'pytest-xidst' framework? The only option that I can think of is to kick off different processes to execute each test suite individually within runner.py: def test_execute_func(testsuite_path): subprocess.process('py.test %s' % testsuite_path) if __name__=='__main__': #Gather all the testsuite names for each testsuite: multiprocessing.Process(test_execute_func,(testsuite_path,))