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Types of Software Testing
In this tutorial, we will learn about the different types of software testing like manual testing, automation testing, alpha testing, beta testing, smoke testing, stress testing, regression testing, etc.
By Monika Sharma Last updated : April 07, 2023
Different types of software testing
The different types of software testing are:
- Manual testing
- Automation testing
- Alpha testing
- Beta testing
- Smoke testing
- Stress testing
- Regression testing
1) Manual testing
In this type of testing, the software is checked for its correctness manually by the tester. Here, the tester must know the perspective regarding the objective of the software. Thus, the tester checks the software for different sets of inputs and checks whether the results produced by the software are the same as the expected results that the software must produce. Here, no automation tools are used.
2) Automation testing
Here, the testing of the software is done with the help of different automation tools. The automation tool itself is a software developed for testing the other software for their correctness. Some of the famous automation tools used for the testing purpose are QTP/ UFT and selenium.
3) Alpha testing
Alpha testing is a part of acceptance testing. This testing is done before releasing the phase of the software where the software is completely ready. The alpha testing is performed by a team of members that are within the software developing organization.
4) Beta testing
The beta testing is also a part of the acceptance testing of the software. The software is still not released and made available for the use of the normal public. Rather, the software is provided to a set of selected customers just for the testing purpose and to get their feedback regarding their experience. This feedback is used for making any modification if required in the software according to the user's satisfaction level.
5) Smoke testing
The smoke testing is done to check the stability of the software when running on different hardware. It happens in many cases that the hardware is not able to handle the load of the software and running the software on such devices damages them and the systems sometimes are also seen getting short-circuited and catching fire. Hence, this gave the name to this type of testing as smoke testing.
6) Stress testing
The stress testing is done to find the amount of stress the software can handle. In this, the software is provided with unfavorable conditions and the performance of the software is observed to check how they work in those conditions. Some examples of this can be like providing the software with inputs that are beyond its range to handle or are invalid.
7) Regression testing
Regression testing is done after the maintenance phase of the software. As the technologies and hardware keep on changing and upgrading, it is important to change and make alterations in the existing code. So, the regression testing is done to check whether the changes made or the added code is running correctly or not. There should be no negative impact of the new code on the existing performance of the software.