With 7.2 billion smartphones in use globally and the number of smartphone users steadily increasing, mobile and web apps are heavily used in everyday life and users' expectations only grow. Google's research shows that many users will leave a mobile resource if it doesn't load within 3 seconds. Therefore, software testing is crucial for every software development project, ensuring apps are free from bugs, run smoothly, and meet user expectations.

In software development, various types of software testing are available to provide quality at every stage. In this article, we explore each type, their benefits, and the testing types our team employs to deliver reliable and robust apps.

What is software testing?

When a software development team creates the code for custom software development solutions or updates them, errors and bugs may occur due to human oversight. To eliminate them, tech teams test different parts of the software manually and automatically.

In short, testing is a series of procedures during which the software development team checks if the created product works as intended, meets the business requirements, and is ready to function correctly under different conditions.

Different specialists and entities can be responsible for testing. It can be run by a QA tester who runs different kinds of tests and reports the bugs to developers. Some large projects may require an entire testing team. Depending on your needs, you can hire a QA tester with specific expertise or outsource the software testing to a third-party tech team.

How do businesses benefit from software testing?

Let's find out how testing makes released apps successful and why it is worth investing in.

Brand reputation

In a competitive digital landscape filled with countless apps and websites, users are quick to abandon a product that doesn't meet their expectations, opting instead for a competitor's more reliable offering. By crafting thorough test cases and leveraging effective software testing techniques, businesses can avoid such a situation and make the app convenient for users. When a business offers a high-quality digital product to its clients, it stands out in a crowded market, proves its own credibility, and gains trust.

Cost-effectiveness

A software development project typically involves several contributors and passes through several phases. Detecting bugs early in the development cycle is more cost-effective than discovering them at a later stage or after release. Implementing a detailed test plan and employing appropriate testing tools can help detect issues and errors early. This allows for timely corrections, reducing the need for costly changes down the line and ensuring a smoother release.

Hassle-free post-release

Once a software application is released, it needs ongoing maintenance. This phase often involves fixing emerging bugs, adding new features, and making adjustments based on user feedback. Software that has been thoroughly tested using various testing methods before launch is generally easier to maintain and requires fewer resources for updates and fixes.

Existing types of software testing

In software development, there are more than 30 testing types that help to check different parts of an app. Not all of them are needed all at once and for each project. Instead, testing types need to be chosen based on the project's specific needs and have to keep a balance between the speed of testing and optimal software quality.

All types of testing can be divided into groups. In this part of the article, we'll explain what the purposes of the most popular types of software testing are and emphasize their business value. Let's take a look at the list:

1. Types of software testing by degree of automation

Manual testing

It's a type of software testing where a QA tester or testing team examines the software application by navigating through it and documenting bugs or errors. This testing type is conducted manually, without automated tools. During the process, the behavior of the software is compared with the expected one.

The testing team follows test cases that define the inputs, procedures, and expected outcomes necessary to verify whether a specific aspect of the software works as intended. Each test is documented in a table of test cases, with each test getting a name and being assigned to an engineer who would address the identified issues.

Manual testing brings several key advantages to businesses. Here are several reasons why any project requires at least a single person running this software testing type:

• Cost-effectiveness — manual testing is a budget-friendly approach as it doesn't rely on expensive testing tools. This type of software testing doesn't require advanced skills or extensive coding knowledge, making it an accessible choice for smaller projects. Developers and project managers can carry out the tests themselves, eliminating the need to hire a separate tester and saving costs.
• User experience assessment — manual testing is a crucial testing type that helps evaluate usability. A QA tester focuses on the convenience, design, and intuitiveness of software applications. These elements demand human oversight and are not effectively assessed with automated testing tools.
• Flexibility when plans change — manual testing can be used on projects needing quick feedback and immediate test execution. Unlike automated testing, which requires complicated setup and maintenance efforts, manual testing allows teams to swiftly check components that are added.

Automated testing

During automated testing, a tech team or a QA tester develops scripts and uses additional testing tools to evaluate the software. This method allows for doing repetitive tasks without manual work. Essentially, it automates tasks that otherwise would be done by a manual testing specialist.

Some businesses may take this further by implementing total test automation, which includes writing test scripts, setting up testing environments, and managing the entire test suite. This approach not only automates test execution but automates the entire evaluation procedure and allows accomplishing it with minimum human participation.

Test automation provides significant benefits for businesses. According to statistics, about 24% of companies that invested in it reported an immediate return on investment (ROI), while another 24% noticed increased ROI within six months. This proves that test automation helps businesses save time and resources on software evaluation. Other benefits for businesses include:

• Increased speed — automated testing increases speed as it is executed by a software tool, operating much faster than a QA tester or an entire testing team.
• Improved test coverage — test coverage is a metric showing the extent to which the application has been tested. Within automated testing, a high volume of test cases and scenarios is executed, which improves test coverage. This type of software testing allows for checking frontend and backend components as well as API integrations.
• Good for repetitive testing — for tests that require frequent repetition, test automation is highly time-efficient. This approach is beneficial for regression testing. When engineers add a new component to the software, it's necessary to re-check the entire application, and automated testing brings significant help.
• High precision — automation removes the likelihood of human error, ensuring high precision of testing.

2. Functional testing

During functional testing, a testing team aims to check if the system complies with functional requirements and expectations. The testing process checks if the application executes its functions according to specifications and works correctly.

At this step of testing, engineers use different scenarios, conditions, and data inputs and check the outputs of the system. Functional testing can be divided into several categories:

Unit testing

Unit testing is a product testing technique where testers evaluate individual components of an application in isolation. This process focuses on improving the application's code quality. Since unit testing mainly involves automated testing, the testing team writes and runs tests every time changes are made to the code.

The main advantage of unit testing lies in maintaining the overall health of the project. It identifies issues early in the software development process, when they are easier to fix, and makes sure that changes to the code don't introduce new bugs. This type of component testing also confirms that the code remains easy to understand and maintain.

Integration testing

This is another type of functional testing conducted after all modules have undergone unit testing. Its purpose is to verify the interactions and data exchange between different components or modules of a software application. In this process, testers identify any problems or bugs that arise when these components are combined and interact with each other.

During integration testing, different scenarios can be evaluated. For example, testers might assess how a user authentication module and a user profile module transfer data between each other. Another scenario in integration testing might involve verifying that data is correctly read from and written to a database after a new user registers, ensuring that all related tables and fields are updated as expected. There are many other scenarios to be tested at this stage.

System testing

System testing is a stage in software evaluation where testers validate the entire integrated system's functionality and performance. They execute test cases to assess functional and non-functional aspects, such as performance, security, volume, and compatibility.

During system testing, testers make sure that all app components work together smoothly. This testing occurs after integration testing and before acceptance testing, aiming to confirm that the software behaves correctly in a simulated real-world environment.

End-to-end testing

End-to-end testing (E2E) is a type of software testing where tech teams validate the entire user journey. With these tests, they make sure that the application functions as required and interactions like payment gateways and cloud services run without errors. This testing method involves real-world scenarios to assess both internal and external integrations. Typically conducted by QA teams, end-to-end testing may also involve stakeholders or a group of end-users.

Acceptance testing

This is a type of functional testing during which the person testing the application checks whether it aligns with technical and business requirements. The key purposes of this type of software testing are to evaluate the quality of the product, understand if it's ready for release, check the product for critical bugs, and understand if it is ready to enter the highly competitive market.

If acceptance testing finds that the product quality is unacceptable and errors are detected, the software can be refined again. This is the functional testing type performed before the solution becomes available for real-world use. Acceptance testing can be conducted by a business owner or another stakeholder. In some sources, this type is also called user acceptance testing.

3. Non-functional testing

Non-functional testing focuses on aspects of the software that are not related to specific functions. Instead, the purpose of non-functional testing is to evaluate performance, usability, reliability, security, and other attributes. Here's a look at some common types of non-functional testing:

Performance testing

Performance testing evaluates how software behaves under expected workloads to find and eliminate bottlenecks that could slow down performance. Common bottlenecks include inefficient database queries, memory leaks, and poor system architecture.

This type of software testing is conducted in an environment that closely mimics production settings and uses tools like Apache JMeter, LoadRunner, or Gatling. During this QA testing, engineers measure response times, resource usage, and throughput under normal operating conditions to make sure the application performs optimally.

Load testing

Load testing is a subset of performance testing, whose purpose is to find out what is the maximum capacity of an application, and how much load it can handle without performance being spoiled. Unlike performance testing, which considers normal traffic conditions, load testing simulates peak conditions to assess whether the system can handle higher-than-expected load volumes without losing stability. Load testing can be executed using tools like Apache JMeter, LoadRunner, or BlazeMeter to simulate multiple users accessing the system simultaneously.

Stability testing

Stability testing is conducted to make sure that a software application maintains consistent performance over an extended period under normal conditions and loads. The goal is to find out if the application can operate without crashing, hanging, or experiencing performance degradation. Stability testing monitors memory usage, CPU load, and response times to find potential issues like memory leaks or resource depletion that can lead to system failures.

Scalability testing

Scalability testing evaluates an application's ability to handle growing demands, such as an increased number of concurrent users or higher transaction volumes, without sacrificing performance. It checks if an application can efficiently scale up or down and maintain its performance under varying workloads. Unlike performance testing, which focuses on assessing the system's behavior under expected load conditions, scalability testing specifically examines the application's capacity to expand and accommodate increased loads over time while maintaining optimal performance.

Security testing

Security testing focuses on identifying vulnerabilities, threats, and risks in a software application and checks if sensitive data is protected enough. Software engineering specialists consider potential security threats that the product might face, such as unauthorized access, data leakage, and phishing attacks, and simulate these threats to assess the software's defenses. Security testing also helps confirm that the software complies with regulations like GDPR, ISO, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and SOC2.

Compatibility testing

Compatibility testing checks if a software application performs equally well across a variety of environments, including different devices, operating systems, browsers, and hardware configurations. During compatibility testing, software engineering specialists evaluate apps and use tools to confirm that web applications display and function correctly across various browsers and their versions. Additionally, they test apps on physical iOS and Android devices to make sure they work well in these operating systems.

Usability testing

Usability testing assesses how easy and intuitive a software application is for users. The aim of this type is to improve user experience and check if an application is user-friendly and accessible. During usability testing, a testing team creates scenarios and tasks that users perform, reflecting real-world activities they might execute within the application. Then they invite a group of potential users and monitor how they navigate the application, gather user feedback including suggestions for improvement, and then find ways to refine the app's interface.

4. Types of software testing by who does it

Alpha testing

Alpha testing is the software testing step conducted by internal staff such as developers, QA testers, and product managers. It is one of the final stages in the software testing lifecycle before beta testing with potential users and the product's release. During this stage, the team simulates real-world usage scenarios to find critical bugs and errors related to functionality, performance, and security.

This type of software testing happens in a controlled environment where developers can closely monitor performance and stability. Alpha testing is carried out manually and is part of the user acceptance testing stage, serving as the last step before the application can be accessed by users.

Beta testing

Beta testing is one of the concluding stages in the software testing lifecycle, classified under user acceptance testing. In this phase, the product is tested by a group of real users who interact with it and provide feedback on its usability and convenience. This type of software testing typically occurs at the user's location, rather than in a controlled environment, and is conducted by individuals outside the company that owns or develops the product.

Beta testing helps to find bugs before release, evaluate product performance, gather user feedback, and pinpoint potential areas for improvement. Additionally, it helps build user loyalty among participants who contribute to the testing process.

5. Types of software testing based on whether the code is executed or not

Static testing

Static testing is a type of software verification performed without actually running the program. Instead, a QA testing team reviews and analyzes the source code or related artifacts such as documentation. Common techniques used in static testing include code reviews, inspections, and walkthroughs. This approach aims to identify issues early and make sure the software works correctly. As a result, static testing reduces the time and costs associated with fixing defects at later stages.

Dynamic testing

Dynamic testing involves executing the software code to make sure that it operates as expected. This testing evaluates the software's functionality and performance by running it in real or simulated environments. Various software testing types, including unit testing, integration testing, system testing, and acceptance testing, fall under the category of dynamic testing. The goal of this testing type is to confirm that the software behaves correctly in real-world scenarios and meets the requirements of the business.

6. Other software testing types that you may have heard of

There are many other terms and types within the field of software testing. While testing teams frequently use them in practice, it can be challenging to categorize them into specific types.

Installation testing

During installation testing, developers install and set up software to understand how the application handles different system configurations, platform differences, and dependencies. This type of software testing makes sure the software installs smoothly, reduces the number of customer support, and helps the business provide a trouble-free experience for users.

Negative testing

Negative testing provides invalid or unexpected inputs to an application to see if it can handle errors smoothly. This testing type reduces the chances of crashes and data issues. As a result, the robustness and stability of the software improves.

Regression testing

Regression testing checks that the existing functionality of the app remains intact after changes are made and no new issues arise. This type of software testing quickly finds negative impacts of code changes, reduces future risks, and improves the reliability of future releases. With regression testing businesses can do faster updates and release new features confidently, knowing that existing functionality remains functional.

Exploratory testing

Within exploratory testing, testers explore the application to find defects without predefined test cases. This adaptable form of testing allows for quick discovery of unexpected issues. It provides the flexibility for testers to adapt and test new ideas and scenarios. Insights from exploratory testing contribute to user-focused improvements and help make better design decisions.

Path testing

Path testing examines all possible execution paths in a software module to make sure they perform as intended. This testing offers thorough coverage by checking all potential paths, which reduces the risk of hidden bugs. Path testing finds logical inefficiencies, helps improve code quality, and provides greater reliability.

Interface testing

Interface testing checks if different software modules and services communicate properly. This type of software testing is used to verify how smoothly data transitions between an application and third-party systems, such as APIs, external databases, or other software services. Thus, testers can confirm that data is accurately sent and received and prevent any potential issues that arise from miscommunication between systems.

Web vs. mobile software testing

Most of the common testing types like functional testing, usability testing, compatibility testing, performance testing, and negative testing can be applied to both web and mobile applications. However, there are specific issues that need to be checked within each format. Here's the list of issues and types of software testing applied to them:

Platform and operating system differences

Testing teams check web apps across different browsers and their versions to maintain consistent performance and appearance. Testers conduct compatibility testing and assess the app's responsive design, to make sure the web app performs well everywhere. They make sure the app functions smoothly on both desktop and mobile browsers.

For mobile apps, testers need to validate their functionality on a variety of devices with different screen sizes, resolutions, and hardware capabilities. Testing must cover both iOS and Android platforms. QA teams conduct compatibility testing using emulators to simulate devices or perform manual testing on physical devices.

Varied ways to interact with an app

Web apps often undergo software testing to evaluate mouse and keyboard interactions. However, mobile-friendly web applications also require touch interaction testing. In this case, usability testing is necessary. It checks UI/UX design and evaluates how well the interface looks on mobile and desktop screens.

When it comes to mobile apps, the testing team should examine how well an app supports touch interactions and gestures like swipes, pinches, and zooms. In this case, usability testing focuses on different interaction methods. Usability is tested with the help of manual testing, during which a focus group checks if inputs are interpreted correctly.

Network conditions

Software like streaming services, messaging apps, and navigation tools are often used with varying internet speeds. Testers should conduct performance testing in environments with both stable and fluctuating broadband connections to find out how web applications perform under different conditions. This helps simulate realistic user experiences and checks if all pages of a web app load efficiently.

For mobile apps, QA testers need to assess how applications operate under diverse network conditions, such as 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi, as well as during interruptions and periods of low connectivity. Therefore, conducting performance testing is vital to verify app reliability under these varied conditions and perform well regardless of network changes.

Performance concerns

In web applications, testers must evaluate the maximum number of users that can access the app simultaneously without causing it to slow down or fail. To assess these aspects, performance and load testing are executed.

For mobile apps, the focus shifts to assessing battery consumption, memory usage, and responsiveness, particularly in multitasking environments. Performance testing for mobile concerns involves evaluating the app on devices with both full and low battery levels.

Handling updates

For web apps, updates are deployed directly to the server, allowing users to automatically access the latest version through their browsers. In this scenario, regression testing verifies that updates do not disrupt existing functionalities.

For mobile apps, updates are managed differently. They are submitted to app stores and not directly deployed by developers within the IT environment. Here, compatibility testing is essential to make sure that new features are compatible across different operating systems. Additionally, acceptance testing should be conducted to confirm that the app meets all intended requirements post-update.

Security concerns

Web and mobile apps each face unique security challenges. For web applications, security testing targets specific vulnerabilities such as cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and cross-site request forgery. Developers should conduct vulnerability scanning and penetration testing to find potential entry points for attacks. They should also implement strong input validation, sanitize outputs, and use security headers to improve the application's defenses.

For mobile apps, security testing must focus on secure data handling, effective permissions management, and identifying vulnerabilities related to mobile devices, such as insecure data storage, weak encryption, and exposure to malicious apps through jailbreaking or rooting. Developers can identify these issues by performing dynamic and static testing.

What types of software testing and tools do our team use?

Our team has completed many software development projects, during which we've developed key principles and practices to consistently release high-quality software. Our testing process involves several stages and reliable tools.

How do we test mobile and web applications?

When we conduct software testing for mobile and web applications, we rely on virtual devices like the iOS Simulator and Android Emulator. These tools are crucial in our testing process, as they allow us to perform compatibility testing across any version of iOS or Android.

We typically carry out compatibility testing on the latest or second-latest versions of these operating systems, such as iOS 18 and 17. For critical features, we can extend our compatibility testing if we envision that bugs may occur.

With most new devices having larger screens, our usability testing focuses on these dimensions. However, we also run tests on smaller screens to find layout or responsive design issues.

In our software development workflow, manual testing is our go-to technique. Unfortunately, the budget of some projects is too tight to accommodate expensive automation testing. However, for large-scale projects with frequent releases and a large user base, we incorporate end-to-end testing with Maestro. This automation testing tool allows us to configure the testing environment, create test scripts, and maintain consistent test execution.

What are the stages in our testing process?

In our testing process, we evaluate applications at different levels, starting from the development phase and concluding with pre-release testing. In our team, not only do testers conduct testing, but our developers are also skilled in various testing techniques. We always make sure all our developers are familiar with software testing methods. Here's the testing process we typically follow:

• Unit testing by developers: developers test specific features in device simulators or on physical devices during development. This type of software testing allows developers to verify that individual components function correctly.
• Code review, dynamic, and static testing: during the code review stage, the reviewer often performs static testing on the written code to identify potential errors and may also conduct dynamic testing on a virtual device to check if basic functionality works as expected.
• Feature testing by team lead: the team lead, the most experienced team member responsible for the product's quality, tests the features to find out how they function.
• Internal alpha testing: if the features perform as designed, they are included in a build for internal alpha testing, which happens weekly. The team lead and a project manager run alpha testing to check the completed parts of the application. Afterward, we may present these to our clients.
• Staging build and acceptance testing: Once all planned tasks for the release are complete and require no further development, we create a staging build that is sent to clients for acceptance testing. At this stage, clients can confirm that everything meets their expectations.
• Pre-release testing: After clients confirm their satisfaction, we perform one last round of manual and automated testing before releasing the app to production. If it's a major release, regression testing is conducted by the team lead or manager to verify all features.
• Production release: After confirming that the application is ready, we proceed with the production build releases, which are then submitted to app stores.

What are our software testing principles?

During our software development process, don't rely on a separate testing team. Instead, developers, team leads, project managers, and members of the client's project team participate in software testing. Thus, we optimize the testing process and the project budget while maintaining top-notch software quality. Here are our key testing principles:

1. Multi-level testing involvement: We involve at least 4 different participants in the testing process. Developers and team lead focus on the technical aspects, performing functional testing, integration testing, end-to-end testing, performance testing, and other types targeting the technical components and code. Meanwhile, managers and the client's representatives conduct usability testing and user acceptance testing. Each participant is less involved in technical issues and has a more user-focused vision, which allows us to test the app from different perspectives.
2. Clear requirements and verification scenarios: We maintain clear task requirements, including verification scenarios. It's a checklist of items that need to be tested by both the developer and reviewer. Detailed test cases are developed to guide the testing process.
3. Developer responsibility: Developers actively participate in testing the application themselves, not shifting the responsibility to the reviewer or manager.
4. Automated monitoring systems: We use automated systems like Sentry to track bugs and monitor application performance issues efficiently. With such continuous testing, we make sure no issues go unnoticed.
5. Detailed test cases for pre-release: On some projects, we develop detailed test cases outlining every feature and the testing scenarios. They guide functional testing and system testing during the pre-release phases.
6. End-to-end testing based on test cases: We run end-to-end testing based on test cases to evaluate the entire functionality of the application at once. To accomplish this, we use automation testing approaches.
7. Standardized bug reporting: We created our own standard for bug reports. It makes sure that bugs found during functional testing or any other type, are documented in a way that makes it easy and quick to resolve.

How do we approach automation testing at Ronas IT?

At Ronas IT, we use several tools and methodologies in the field of automation testing. Our main testing tool for the backend is the PHPUnit framework, enhanced with our custom extensions. These extensions provide features like a database dump system, fixture systems with expected outcomes, and mechanisms to verify queue states and data changes within tables.

We automate our workflow using a continuous integration tool that monitors our code repository. This tool runs automated testing whenever new changes are pushed making sure that our code is well-tested.

In our test automation strategy, we track code coverage by automated tests. If the coverage percentage ever drops, we address gaps in the tested code. We also generate a standard set of automated tests based on the types of requests we produce. While this automation testing covers general validations, specific checks are crafted manually for more unusual scenarios.

Additionally, we developed a solution called Laravel-Swagger, a fully automated tool that generates and stores documentation after completing your application's feature tests. By integrating innovations like these, we make sure that our test automation processes can adapt to the varying project requirements.

Wrapping up

In conclusion, various types of software testing are essential for checking the quality of different application components, from individual features to the entire infrastructure. It's not necessary to perform all existing testing types simultaneously because the main objective of software testing is to achieve optimal software quality within the required timeline and budget. To make software evaluation more precise, we recommend incorporating both manual testing and automation testing elements if resources allow for it. Such a balanced approach helps to reach thorough coverage across different phases of the testing process and contributes to a more reliable and robust software product.