How Many Types of Testing Tools

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INTRODUCTION

How Many Types of Testing Tools Are There? Some of the tools that a tester is likely to come across include automated tools, unit tests (black box) and unit tests (white box), smoke and sanity tests, integration testing tools, usability testing tools and regression testing tools.

Have you ever tried to find the test you were looking for, only to find out it was the wrong type? This confusion could have been avoided if you knew more than one type of test. From creating software to building hardware, software testers can use a variety of tools and techniques when executing testing activities to ensure quality. In this post, we will list 8 types of testing tools every tester should know.

Types of Software Testing

Software testing is generally classified into two main broad categories: functional testing and non-functional testing. There is also another general type of testing called maintenance testing.

1. Functional Testing

Functional testing involves the testing of the functional aspects of a software application. When you’re performing functional tests, you have to test each and every functionality. You need to see whether you’re getting the desired results or not.

There are several types of functional testing, such as:

  • Unit testing
  • Integration testing
  • End-to-end testing
  • Smoke testing
  • Sanity testing
  • Regression testing
  • Acceptance testing
  • White box testing
  • Black box testing
  • Interface testing

Functional tests are performed both manually and using automation tools. For this kind of testing, manual testing is easy, but you should use tools when necessary.

Some tools that you can use for functional testing are Micro Focus UFT (previously known as QTP, and UFT stands for Unified Functional Testing), Selenium, JUnit, soapUI, Watir, etc.

2. Non-functional Testing

Non-functional testing is the testing of non-functional aspects of an application, such as performance, reliability, usability, security, and so on. Non-functional tests are performed after the functional tests.

With non-functional testing, you can improve your software’s quality to a great extent. Functional tests also improve the quality, but with non-functional tests, you have the opportunity to make your software even better. Non-functional testing allows you to polish the software. This kind of testing is not about whether the software works or not. Rather, it’s about how well the software runs, and many other things.

Non-functional tests are not generally run manually. In fact, it’s difficult to perform this kind of tests manually. So these tests are usually executed using tools.

There are several types of non-functional testing, such as:

  • Performance testing
  • Security testing
  • Load testing
  • Failover testing
  • Compatibility testing
  • Usability testing
  • Scalability testing
  • Volume testing
  • Stress testing
  • Maintainability testing
  • Compliance testing
  • Efficiency testing
  • Reliability testing
  • Endurance testing
  • Disaster recovery testing
  • Localization testing
  • Internationalization testing

Note that explaining all the types of software testing is beyond the scope of this article.

Different Types of Software Testing

This article explains only some of the most common types of software testing.

1. Unit Testing

Testing each component or module of your software project is known as unit testing. To perform this kind of testing, knowledge of programming is necessary. So only programmers do this kind of tests, not testers.

You have to do a great deal of unit testing as you should test each and every unit of code in your project.

2. Integration testing

After integrating the modules, you need to see if the combined modules work together or not. This type of testing is known as integration testing. You need to perform fewer integration tests than unit tests.

Some good tools for unit and integration testing are Jasmine, Mocha, etc.

3. End-to-end Testing

End-to-end testing is the functional testing of the entire software system. When you test the complete software system, such testing is called end-to-end testing. You need to perform fewer end-to-end tests than integration tests.

Cucumber, Protractor, Jasmine, Karma, SpecFlow, etc. are some great end-to-end testing tools.

4. User Interface Testing

User interface testing involves the testing of the application’s user interface. The aim of UI tests is to check whether the user interfaces have been developed according to what is described in the requirements specifications document.

By running UI tests, you can make the application’s user interfaces more user-friendly and appealing to the eyes.

Some great automated user interface testing tools are Monkey test for Android, Saucelabs, and Protractor.

5. Accessibility testing

Testing whether your software is accessible to disabled people or not is termed as accessible testing. For this type of tests, you need to check if disabled people such as those who are color blind, blind, and deaf can use your application.

The right choice of color and contrast need to be made to make your software accessible to color-blind people.

6. Alpha testing

Alpha testing is a kind of testing to look for all the errors and issues in the entire software. This kind of test is done at the last phase of app development and is performed at the place of the developers, before launching the product or before delivering it to the client to ensure that the user/client gets an error-free software application.

Alpha testing is run before the beta testing, which means that after performing alpha testing, you need to run beta testing.

Alpha testing is not performed in the real environment. Rather, this kind of tests is done by creating a virtual environment that resembles a real environment.

7. Beta testing

As said earlier, beta testing takes place after alpha testing. Beta testing is done before the launch of the product. It is carried out in a real user environment by a limited number of actual customers or users, in order to be certain that the software is completely error-free and it functions smoothly. After collecting feedback and constructive criticism from those users, some changes are made to make the software better.

So when the software is under beta testing, it is called beta version of the software. After this testing is complete, the software is released to the public.

8. Ad-hoc testing

As the name suggests, ad-hoc testing is a kind of testing that is performed in an ad-hoc manner, without using any test cases, plans, documentation, or systems. Unlike all other types of testing, this kind of testing is not carried out in a systematic manner.

Although finding errors can be difficult without using test cases, there are technical issues that are easily detected through an ad-hoc test, but are hard to find through other testing approaches that use test cases.

This informal type of software testing can be executed by any person involved with the project.

9. Compatibility testing

Compatibility testing involves compatibility checking of the software with different operating systems, web browsers, network environments, hardware, and so on. It checks whether the developed software application is working fine with different configurations.

To give you a few examples, if the software is a Windows app, it should be checked whether it is compatible with different versions of the Windows operating system. If it’s a web application, it is tested whether the app is easily accessible from different versions of the widely-used web browsers. And if it’s an Android app, it should be checked whether it is working well with all the commonly used versions of the Android operating system.

10. Backward compatibility testing

Backward compatibility testing is carried out to test if a brand new or an updated version of an application is compatible with the previous versions of the environments (such as operating systems and web browsers) on which the software runs. Sometimes, some application is updated specifically to match the standard and style of a newer, more modern environment. In that case, support for backward compatibility is necessary.

Backward compatibility testing ensures that all those who are using the older versions of a particular environment can use your software.

11. Browser compatibility testing

As the name says, browser compatibility testing checks a web application for browser compatibility. More specifically, it is tested whether the web app can easily be accessed from all versions of the major web browsers.

It is a specific form of compatibility testing, while compatibility testing checks for general compatibility.

Some popular tools to check browser compatibility include CrossBrowserTesting.com, LamdaTest, Browsershots, Experitest, Turbo Browser Sandbox, Ranorex Studio, Browsera, etc.

12. Performance testing

Performance tests are run to check if the software’s performance is good or not. There are performance testing tools that analyze your app’s performance and show you the performance issues. By fixing those issues, you’ll be able to increase the performance of your software application.

Some great performance testing tools, also known as load testing tools, for web applications are WebLOAD, LoadView, NeoLoad, LoadNinja, Appvance, LoadRunner, Apache JMeter, Loadster, LoadImpact, Testing Anywhere, SmartMeter.io, Tricentis Flood, Rational Performance Tester, LoadComplete, etc.

13. Load testing

Load testing is one kind of performance testing that tests how much load a system can take before the software performance begins to degrade. By running load tests, we can know the capacity of taking load of a system.

You can run load tests using tools like LoadRunner, WebLoad, JMeter, etc.

14. Recovery testing

Recovery testing involves the checking of whether the application can recover from crashes and how well it recovers. In this kind of tests, testers observe how well the software can come back to the normal flow of execution. Crashes can happen anytime. Even if your software is of exceptional quality, crashes may happen. You don’t know when they may take place and annoy the users.

So you have to implement mechanisms that will recover the software application quickly and that will make the application run smoothly again.

15. Regression testing

If you need to make changes in any component, module, or function, you have to see if the whole system functions properly after those modifications. Testing of the whole system after such modifications is known as regression testing.

16. Agile testing

Carried out by the QA team, Agile testing is a type of testing that is conducted according to the rules of agile methodology. This kind of testing is done from the actual customers’ viewpoint.

Some useful tools that you can use for Agile testing are JIRA, PractiTest, JunoOne, VersionOne, TestRail, SoapUI, etc.

17. API testing

Just like unit testing, API testing is also a code-level testing type. The basic difference between unit testing and API testing is that unit testing is performed by the development team whereas API testing is handled by the QA team.

18. Black box testing

Performed by the QA team of a company, black box testing is a testing technique that involves the checking of the application’s functionality without having any technical knowledge of the application, like the knowledge of the code’s logic, how the code works, knowledge of the internal structure, etc.

19. White box testing

Performed by the development team, white box testing is a testing method that requires a good understanding of the application’s code. It requires great knowledge of the app’s internal logic.

20. Security testing

Security tests are performed to ensure the security of your application, in order that security breaches can be prevented. Security experts run this kind of tests to see how much your software is secure from attacks and to find security issues so that the app’s security can be strengthened.

The top website security testing tools include Grabber, Arachni, Iron Wasp, Nogotofail, SQLMap, W3af, Wapiti, Wfuzz, Zed Attack Proxy, etc.

21. Usability testing

Testing the user-friendliness of an app is known as usability testing. It involves the checking of how much usable or user-friendly the app is. It is tested whether any user can easily use your software without getting stuck.

One of the best ways to test the usability of your software is to invite a few people to use your software. See if they can do certain things in your app without taking any help from you.

Take a look at these useful usability testing tools: Optimizely, Qualaroo, Crazy Egg, Usabilla, Clicktale, Five Second Test, Chalkmark.

22. Scalability testing

Scalability testing verifies whether the software is scalable or not. In other words, it checks if your app performs well when the number of users, amount of data, or the number of transactions increases significantly. A software application that is not scalable may cause great business loss.

23. Reliability testing

Reliability testing is a type of software testing that verifies if the software is reliable or not. In other words, it checks whether the software runs error-free and that one can rely on it.

For example, if a user’s important information stored in the database of the software gets suddenly deleted after a few months because of some error in the code, we can say that the software is not reliable.

24. Acceptance testing

The client who will purchase your software will perform acceptance testing (also known as User Acceptance Testing) to see if the software can be accepted or not by checking whether your software meets all the client’s requirements and preferences. If your software doesn’t meet all the requirements or if your client doesn’t like something in the app, they may request you to make changes before accepting the project.

What Are the Different Types of Testing?

There are many different types of testing. Here is a quick breakdown of the most common testing types:

Many of these types of testing can be done manually — or they can be automated.

Accessibility Testing 

Accessibility testing is the practice of ensuring your mobile and web apps are working and usable for users without and with disabilities such as vision impairment, hearing disabilities, and other physical or cognitive conditions. 

Acceptance Testing 

Acceptance testing ensures that the end-user (customers) can achieve the goals set in the business requirements, which determines whether the software is acceptable for delivery or not. It is also known as user acceptance testing (UAT).  

Black Box Testing 

Black box testing involves testing against a system where the code and paths are invisible. 

End to End Testing 

End to end testing is a technique that tests the application’s workflow from beginning to end to make sure everything functions as expected. 

Functional Testing 

Functional testing checks an application, website, or system to ensure it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing. 

Interactive Testing 

Also known as manual testing, interactive testing enables testers to create and facilitate manual tests for those who do not use automation and collect results from external tests.  

Integration Testing 

Integration testing ensures that an entire, integrated system meets a set of requirements. It is performed in an integrated hardware and software environment to ensure that the entire system functions properly.  

Load Testing 

This type of non-functional software testing process determines how the software application behaves while being accessed by multiple users simultaneously. 

Non Functional Testing 

Non functional testing verifies the readiness of a system according to nonfunctional parameters (performance, accessibility, UX, etc.)  which are never addressed by functional testing. 

Performance Testing 

Performance testing examines the speed, stability, reliability, scalability, and resource usage of a software application under a specified workload. 

Regression Testing 

Regression testing is performed to determine if code modifications break an application or consume resources. 

Sanity Testing 

Performed after bug fixes, sanity testing determines that the bugs are fixed and that no further issues are introduced to these changes.  

Security Testing 

Security testing unveils the vulnerabilities of the system to ensure that the software system and application are free from any threats or risks. These tests aim to find any potential flaws and weaknesses in the software system that could lead to a loss of data, revenue, or reputation per employees or outsides of a company. 

Single User Performance Testing 

Single user performance testing checks that the application under test performs fine according to specified threshold without any system load. This benchmark can be then used to define a realistic threshold when the system is under load.  

Smoke Testing 

This type of software testing validates the stability of a software application, it is performed on the initial software build to ensure that the critical functions of the program are working. 

Stress Testing 

Stress testing is a software testing activity that tests beyond normal operational capacity to test the results. 

Unit Testing 

Unit testing is the process of checking small pieces of code to ensure that the individual parts of a program work properly on their own, speeding up testing strategies and reducing wasted tests. 

White Box Testing 

White box testing involves testing the product’s underlying structure, architecture, and code to validate input-output flow and enhance design, usability, and security. 

CONCLUSION

There are many types of testing tools to be aware of. Some testers use rubber bands as tools. Others use rubber bands with paperclips attached to them. Still others use what is known as a tongue depressor. A tongue depressor is used to make sure dental tools are working properly. You may also hear the term Q-Tip, which is short for cotton tip applicator.

As we get going, I want to be able to fill you in on all the types of testing tools out there. There are a lot and they’re each pretty cool. To help me do that, let’s visualize the realm of software testing through a fictitious person named Joe.

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