Difference between Alpha and Beta Testing | 2022

Together, alpha and beta testing ensure the software is stable, works at scale, and performs as designed and as users expected. Companies that avoid acceptance testing risk delivering negative customer experiences.

For any new software or OS, testing plays an important role. Testing of software would be done to identify and rectify the errors and/or bugs if the particular software has any! The new software would be successful if and only if it reaches the expectations of the customers.

Creating the such type of software is not an easy task; also reaching out to the needs of customers is also not an easy task. To reach these needs and to make the software easily accessible to customers without any interruption, companies run various testing methods on the particular software.

Through these testing processes, the developers get to know the bugs or errors and would get a chance to rectify them before launching the software to everybody. There are many types of these testing methods. 

Types of Testing

Testing is nothing but executing a program to find out the errors.

 All the testing methods should reach the requirements of customers. A particular plan should be followed in testing the software. Let us look into different types of testing.

1. Unit testing.
2. Integration testing
3. Regression testing
4. Smoke testing
5. Alpha testing
6. Beta testing
7. System testing
8. Stress testing
9. Performance testing
10. Object-oriented testing.

In this article, let us know about alpha testing and beta testing in detail. Let us also know about the differences between them.

What is alpha testing?

Like the remaining types of testing, alpha testing is also used to test main errors or bugs in software.

It is used by the team members within the company to identify errors. In other words, alpha testing is done by employees of the company before they follow it up with other testing methods.

This type of testing is done within a laboratory or particular environment. It is confidential testing; other than employees no one could have a chance of knowing about it. Both black box and white box techniques are used in alpha testing.

Steps involved in alpha testing

Alpha testing is involved two steps.

1. In the first step, the software would be given to the team of the company and they will find bugs using debugger software to find them quickly and will rectify them.
2. In the next step, the qualitative analysis team will look after the software to find more errors or bugs if any. Then again, the software would be sent back to the developer to rectify those errors.

What is beta testing?

Beta testing is the testing done by selected outsiders for a particular software. This test is done after alpha testing.

Maximum errors and bugs would be rectified by the time software had reached to beta testing level. No particular lab or environment is required for beta testing.

It is done by the public to know about their opinions on the software. If they had any issues with the software, the company will deal with those issues before launching the software to the availability of everyone. Beta testing uses only black-box testing.

Steps involved in beta testing

Beta testing involves in following steps.

1. After companies had done testing errors and bugs through alpha testing, they publicly announce the requirement for beta testers.
2. Interested and eligible candidates should apply for the tester job.
3. The particular company will send the required software to the beta testers to test them practically.
4. It takes a few weeks to test the software.
5. After testing, beta testers will report the inconveniences things if the software has any!
6. Again, developers of the software, rectify those errors/bugs to make the software user-friendly.

Types of beta testers: 

There are five types of beta testing.

1. Traditional beta testing: In this type of testing, the product or software would be sent to the market, and required data would be gathered.
2. Public beta testing: In this type of testing, the product is released to the selected public directly.
3. Technical beta testing: in this type of testing, the software or the product is sent to the closed group of an organization to identify the errors.
4. Focused beta testing: in this type of testing, the product or software is sent to the public only to test the particular focused feature.
5. Post-release beta testing: in this type, the product is already released to the public but the testing is required to follow up the future launches of the product.

Differences between alpha and beta testing

Alpha testing	Beta testing
It is a test conducted by the employees of the company.	It is done by the public and outsiders of the company
It uses both black box and white box techniques.	It uses only the black box technique.
It is done within the required environment and laboratory	It doesn’t need any particular environment
It is confidential and very few people know about it.	Many people may know about it.
It takes less time to identify the errors or bugs through this testing.	It takes more time than alpha testing as it involves the public.
This is the initial process to identify bugs and errors	It is the final process to identify errors through selected testers.

Advantages of alpha testing

• We can find errors and bugs and can rectify them far before the launch of the product.
• As it is a detection process in the early stages of the software, it helps in detecting serious errors, showstoppers, etc.
• It helps in studying the user interface.

Advantages of beta-testing

• As it is the testing done by the testers outside of the firm, there are higher chances of improvement of the product.
• It reduces the risk of customer dissatisfaction.
• It is money friendly and user-friendly way of testing.
• it provides positivity among customers.

Conclusion

Even though there are some differences between alpha and beta testing, both play a major role in the development and success of software or a product. Without these testing, there are higher chances of failure of the particular product.

While alpha testing helps in stimulating the real-time user interface, beta testing helps in finding out the practical performance of the product so that it can reach customers easily and the company gets a positive response for its product.