Sanity Testing vs. Smoke Testing

Sanity testing and smoke testing are two of the most commonly used software testing methodologies. They’re also among the most misunderstood. Many confuse them with each other, or with regression testing, but in reality, they are two different types of testing methodologies that are used at different stages of the testing cycle. Read on to learn more:

Sanity Testing

When you make a small change in your software, such as a minor bug fix, you’ll deploy a sanity test to see if everything is working properly once that bug fix is implemented. In other words, it checks to see if that bug fix actually worked, and it isn’t causing more problems than it solved. Sanity testing is purely a functional test that checks to see that everything in the software is functioning as it should.

Smoke Testing

Smoke testing, meanwhile, checks to make sure that critical components of your software are functioning as they should be. It verifies the stability of your software by checking only the most important functions. Put another way, where a sanity test checks how small changes affect your software, a smoke test checks how big changes affect it. This is typically done before a regression test is executed in order to save testers time and effort later on.

At Beta Breakers Quality Assurance Lab, we can execute both sanity and smoke testing for your software application. To learn more about our services, contact us today.