Adding a new feature to your mobile app or launching a new app can be stressful. You would always be wondering about the probability of bugs or worried whether your customer will like your app or how they will respond to this change or how reliable is the added feature, etc. Let  us see about Alpha Vs Beta Testing. 

Testing gives reliable insights and confidence for a successful launch.

This blog post will cover the basic idea of Alpha testing and Beta testing, their pros and cons, and will help you in determining which would be suitable for your business. 

Alpha Testing – a brief 

Alpha testing is a kind of acceptance testing that is carried out to identify all the possible bugs in the app before the product release. In general, alpha testing is performed by internal employees in a lab environment. 

The main intention of the testing is to determine the possible bugs by the internal team members. In short, this test is more like the stimulation of the new product and the type of experience your user will get after the launch. It will also help your team to uncover any possible bugs in the app.

Pro: 

1. Early detection of bugs or difficulties in the product 

2. Identify any major bugs before the launch 

Cons:

1. The product is still under development so some in-depth functionality cannot be identified. 

Alpha Testing Example

The below example will give you an idea about where to start the test and how it should progress: 

Set your goal: Define the outcome of the test which you would like to achieve from the test. If you are testing for the speed or accuracy for the app then define the same. 

Create a test plan: Build test cases with iterations, defects logs, fixing defects and retesting, etc. 

Receive data from the QA team: The feedback from the QA team will include the reliability, and usability of the app. 

What is Beta Testing?

The objective of beta testing is to test the created application under a real environment by real users. It tends to be considered as a type of external user acceptance testing. Furthermore, beta testing offers benefits by the way that a wide range of clients with a wide range of gadgets and configurations will test the app first. 

During the beta testing process, apps are tested explicitly before launching to identify any latest or major bugs and to get early input from beta testers so as to improve the quality of the product. 

The beta testing can be distinguished as: 

Internal beta testing

Internal beta testing is completed by the internal organization or by a service provider explicitly appointed for the undertaking.

External beta testing

External beta testings are normally executed openly. Beta testers can enroll straightforwardly and in general, they are rewarded for participating in large beta testing 

Pro: 

1. Customer approval brings genuine utilization of your product which gives better experiences on usability, reliability, and security. 

Con: 

1. It can be hard to make user feedback actionable. 

2. A few organizations face difficulties in differentiating valid product and customer perception that needs to be addressed 

Difference between Alpha and Beta Testing 

When you begin building up your application or software you can likewise begin alpha testing. Alpha testing begins before beta testing and is typically executed internally by the development team along with the QA team. During alpha testing, a wide range of tests that are important to release qualitative apps are executed.

In Agile development ‘alpha testing’ is tried during a run or an iteration. When it is concluded that a created new feature should be accessible for the public, the change to beta testing happens. Alpha testing, as a rule, follows a White Box approach, which implies that the tester knows the code and can access it.

Beta testing is normally executed in a production environment and beta testing generally utilizes the Black Box approach. This implies the tester cannot see the code and are not able to access it. The objective of beta testing is to test the application under a real-life environment, with real users, before the application is made accessible to the entire world by means of the app stores. Alpha testing is carried out in a secure environment while beta testing is carried out as wild. 

Takeaway

While both alpha and beta testing have their upsides and downsides, each application is different. It’s dependent upon the product to figure out which testing is right for your app. 

Testing your item is only the initial step. When it’s out there, you should be persistently learning and improving as your user needs develop. Discover which testing method can scale effectively. This was all about Alpha Vs Beta Testing.