Differences Between Alpha & Beta Testing

The majority of software products will go through two types of testing: alpha testing and beta testing. Both testing phases can find and fix defects and other bugs that linger in a particular software or website, but how they go about it is entirely different.  

Here we discuss the differences between alpha and beta testing to better prepare you for the quality assurance testing process: 

Alpha Testing  

The first phase of testing your product is alpha testing. This occurs toward the end of the development process and when the product is almost entirely usable. During this phase, the product is tested by engineers and company employees to find bugs, fix critical issues, and add or change features. Alpha testing is all about methodology, efficiency, and regimen by setting well-defined benchmarks and measuring the product against those benchmarks.  

Beta Testing  

Beta testing picks up where alpha testing left off. During this stage, the goal is to ensure that your product is ready to be released. Typically occurring weeks (or sometimes even days) before a product release to the general public, beta testing involves the product team and quality assurance team. The objective now is to take the feature-complete application and ensure that it functions as designed on the myriad of systems in the target demographic. Defects are logged by QA, addressed by the development team, and reassigned back to QA for verification/regression.  

Both alpha testing and beta testing are crucial in releasing bug-free software to the public. This can only be done, however, with a proper quality assurance team at your disposal. Beta Breakers Quality Assurance Labs can test the functionality and overall usability of your application. Contact us today to learn more!