What is Smoke Testing

It is a type of Testing where QA determines whether the deployed software build is stable or not as it provides a confirmation for QA Team to proceed with further Software Testing. It is also known as ‘Build Verification Testing’ or ‘Confidence Testing’.

Under this, we also verify the following aspects –

• It consists of minimum set of Test Runs on each build to test Software Functionality.
• We also check whether the important features are working.
• There is no showstopper in the build under test.

Advantages of Smoke Testing

1. Defects are identified in the early stage.
2. It improves the quality of the Application.
3. Reduces the risk.
4. It saves Test Efforts and Time.
5. It runs quickly.

Note: If we don’t perform Testing in early stage, Defects will be encountered at the later stage which is Cost Effective. These Defects can be showstoppers where it may affect the release of the deliverables.

Sample Smoke Test Cases Examples:

• Validate if the User is able to login to the Banking Application with Valid UserID and Password.
• Validate if the User is able to add the beneficiary into the Bank Account.
• The user should be able to do transactions successfully.
• Validate if the User is able to logout of the application.

In a nutshell, Smoke Testing should be performed on each and every build as it helps to find Defects at the early stage. Smoke Test is the final step before the Software Build enters the System Testing phase. Smoke Tests must be performed on each build that is turned to testing.

What is Sanity Testing

It is a type of testing to check whether testing for the build can proceed further or not. The main objective of the Sanity Testing is to validate the Functionality of the application and not detailed testing. It is a subset of Regression Testing, also it is done to ensure that the code changes that are made are working properly.

If the Sanity Test fails, then the Software Application (AUT) is rejected by the Testing Team to save the time, effort & money.

Advantages of Sanity Testing

• It helps in identifying the Defects in the Core Functionality.
• No Documentation is required for Sanity Testing
• It can be done a very less time.
• If the Defects are found in the Sanity Test, the Project is rejected which helps in saving time for execution of Regression Tests.

Example of Sanity Testing

 There is an e-commerce website which has UserID and Password for login, also password field accepts 8 characters only. Somehow the password field accepts 6 characters as well so this is an issue which we need to report to the respective Developer. 

Once the Developer fixes the issue, it is working fine i.e., password field is taking 8 characters only (As per requirement), now we also need to test whether the same password is updated at the User Profile of the current login user.

So as part of Sanity Testing login page and profile page should get updated to ensure that the checks are working fine at both the places.

Difference between Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing

The difference between Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing is as follows -

Commonly asked Interview Questions

• What is Smoke Testing?
• What is Sanity Testing?
• Tell me the difference between Smoke and Sanity Testing?