Every business today looks for desired success and to stay competitive it is important to build software that offers the best end-user experience. Regardless of the business, the demand for superior software must lower the time and the cost involved to build it. There are several steps to make perfect software, the primary step involved in testing. Testing guarantees that the software is effective, trustworthy, and efficient, all at the same time. The important concepts of testing during the development are smoke, sanity, and regression testing. All of them need to be used at different stages of the development process and each comes with a specific objective. Your testing team will plan the usage of each testing concept based on a different set of factors including software’s functionality, the testing objective, complexity, and budget. In this blog, we have discussed Smoke Testing vs Sanity Testing vs Regression Testing in detail for better understanding.
Introduction to Smoke Testing
Smoke testing is a process that is basically carried out during the development phase of SDLC. It makes sure that the core functionalities of a program are properly working without any bugs. It is performed before any detailed functional tests.
The main objective of smoke testing is to carry out deep testing as well as check the main functionalities of the software program are working fine. This testing aims to eliminate badly broken build in the initial stages to save the tester time in installing & testing the application.
Need of Smoke Testing
- When developers share a fresh build with the QA team. It means when the build has new changes done by the developers.
- When a fresh module is integrated into the existing functionality.
Sanity Testing
Sanity testing is performed to check whether an application is working appropriately when a new module is integrated into an existing product. This software testing performs a quick evaluation of the software quality to determine whether it is eligible for further rounds of testing or not.
Sanity testing is majorly done after receiving a stable software build or sometimes when a software build might have undergone minute changes. It decides if end-to-end testing of a software product must be carried out further or not.
Need of Sanity Testing
- To verify and authorize the performance of newly added functionalities in existing code.
- To check that the changes made do not impact other existing functionalities.
- Software code is received after multiple regressions or if there is a change in the code.
Regression Testing
Regression testing verifies “bug fixes or any changes” to ensure they are not impacting other functionalities of the software application. The testing is effective on automation and majorly performed after some customizations done in the software build like a bug fix.
Once Sanity testing is completed, all the impacted features need complete testing. This is named regression testing. Whenever bug fixes are done, some test scenarios require execution, to verify the bug fixes. Furthermore, the QA team has to verify the impacted areas, as per the code changes. In regression testing services, all such test scenarios are executed, to take care of relevant functionalities.
Need of Regression Testing
- Performed after Code modification as per changes
- Performed after some new features are added to the application
- Some bug fixes are integrated into the build
Key Points
- Smoke and Sanity testing support quick testing to make sure whether an application is working properly or not. It also ensures that the application is eligible for further testing. While Regression testing enhances the confidence about the software quality after a specific change.
- Smoke Testing is done as a subset of rigorous testing. It can be performed by the development team as well. Whereas both Sanity & Regression testing is performed only by the QA team. Sanity testing is considered a subset of acceptance testing.
- Smoke testing is performed at the initial phase of SDLC, to check the key functionalities of an application. While Sanity & Regression testing is performed at the final stage of SDLC, to analyze application functionalities.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is meant by software testing?
Software testing is the process of evaluating and verifying that a software product or application does what it is supposed to do. The benefits of testing include preventing bugs, reducing development costs, and improving performance. Unit testing: Validating that each software unit performs as expected.
- What are the basic fundamentals of software testing?
- Fundamental Test Process
- Test Planning and Control.
- Test Analysis and Design.
- Test Implementation and Execution.
- Evaluating Exit Criteria and Reporting.
- Test Closure
- Why automation testing is better than manual?
Automation testing helps testers execute more test cases and improve test coverage. When comparing manual vs. automation testing, manually takes longer. Automated testing is more efficient.
Wrapping Up:
Every Software Development Company has a separate team of QA to perform Smoke, Sanity, and Regression testing. All of these testing types have pre-defined test cases that are executed multiple times. This continuous execution makes them the perfect candidate for test automation. When looking for automation, contact an experienced Software Testing Company having relevant resources to use different tools that offer you ROI on automation from the initial stages.
so these are the above-mentioned Smoke Testing Vs Sanity Testing Vs Regression Testing key differences.
