Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing : What Is it & Differences

In this blog post, we are going to discuss the difference between the two types of software testing namely, smoke testing and sanity testing done to make sure that bugs or defects are exposed in the development cycle’s initial phases itself. But before getting into the difference between smoke testing and sanity testing, we will briefly introduce smoke and sanity testing that are conducted on a piece of software before it gets released in the market. 

Concept of Smoke Testing 

• Before conducting thorough testing or rigorous testing, QA engineers perform a type of software testing called smoke testing to make sure an application’s fundamental and essential functionalities are functioning properly. 

• A subset of user acceptability testing or build verification testing is known as smoke testing. So, smoke testing is used to test every feature of the software product or determine whether the build is broken or not, to put it simply. 

• Smoke testing is only done positively, in order to only submit real data and not false information. Because certain modifications may have broken a key component of a new release, QA engineers always begin with smoke testing when a new build is generated. 

Concept of Sanity Testing 

• Sanity testing is the type of software testing that is performed when the QA engineers receive software builds from the development team that have had small code modifications.  

• It serves as a checkpoint to determine whether or not testing for the build may continue. As a result, it is sometimes referred to as a variant of regression testing. 

• To put it simply, we can say that sanity testing is carried out to ensure that all defects present in the software application have been fixed and to make sure that the modifications in the application haven’t introduced any new issues. 
• Sanity testing makes sure that the linked modules are not impacted by changes to the code or functions. As a result, it can only be used on linked modules that might be affected. 

Smoke Testing vs Sanity Testing 

Following are the major differences between Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing:

• All components of the application are tested as part of a comprehensive testing strategy known as smoke testing. As a result, it is regarded as a shallow and wide testing. Sanity testing, on the other hand, is a limited testing strategy in which only a few components of the application are tested. As a result, it is considered as a narrow and deep testing. 

• Smoke testing can be done through manual or automated methods, which allows use of test cases for documentation. Sanity testing, on the other hand, can be done without using test scripts or test cases which means documentation is not allowed in the case of sanity testing. 

• As soon as the build is installed, smoke testing begins, and as soon as the bugs have been fixed, sanity testing begins. Both testers and developers carry out smoke testing. On the other hand, only testers carry out sanity testing. 

• The first testing carried out on the initial build is smoke testing and sanity testing, on the other hand, is carried out when the build is reasonably stable. Although sanity testing is used to test just updated or defect-fixed functions, smoke testing is used to test the application’s End to End functionality. 

Conclusion

Hence, from the above discussion, we have come to the conclusion that smoke testing and sanity testing must be conducted in order to test the software or application. For successful and high-quality results in quality assurance, the tester newbie has to be familiar with the foundations of smoke and sanity testing. 

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