The Difference Between Alpha And Beta Testing

Consider a situation where you and your team developed software with lots of effort and hard work but after you delivered it to the client it contained loopholes and this happened due to a lack of testing that needs to be done for every software. It is important to perform various kinds of testing for your product to gain customer satisfaction and check software adaptability and functionality.

Alpha and beta testing

Alpha testing

Alpha testing is carried out in two phases. The first phase is performed by software developers of the organization using some debugging software or tools. While the second phase is carried out by the testers or quality analysts. This phase covers black and white box testing also.

Beta testing

Beta testing is also a type of acceptance testing that is done by a particular group of real users of the application. As it is the final stage of testing, it is done in production or a real environment. To achieve this type of testing the software is released to a few external members or customers who are not from the organization.

Alpha and beta testing differences

Alpha testing

• This testing is performed by the employees of the organization
• This kind of testing requires a specific environment for testing.
• Robustness and security test is not performed in alpha testing
• It is performed before the product launches into the market.
• It performs many cycles to complete the testing. This may vary with the number of issues found.
• The main goal is to evaluate the quality of the product
• Both white-box and Black-box testing are involved.
• Activities can be controlled since it’s performed on the developer’s site.
• This testing is done by highly-skilled employees. They have knowledge about the software product.
• Stakeholders are the product management team, quality assurance team, and engineers.
• Developers can resolve the bugs in alpha testing after testers inform them.

Beta testing

• This testing is done by clients who are not part of the organization.
• This does not require any environment for testing.
• These parameters are checked during beta testing.
• It is performed at the time of product marketing.
• It performs 1-2 cycles to complete the testing. This may vary with the user’s feedback.
• The main goal is to evaluate customer satisfaction.
• It only involves black-box testing.
• Activities can’t be controlled, since it’s performed in the real environment.
• This testing is done by the end-users. They don’t have the technical knowledge of the software product.
• Stakeholders are the product management team, user experience team, and quality management team.
• The feedback collected from the users is implemented in the future or in the next version of the application.

Conclusion

Testing is a crucial step for any of the applications. It is important to perform both the testing Alpha and Beta with proper and well-defined procedures to make the application a successful product to use. In the IT world, the software is not worth it unless it is tested by the developers and liked by the end users.