Smoke Testing:

Whenever a new feature comes into the picture, we perform Smoke Testing to make sure all basic and critical feature is not affected by present code changes and application is working fine.

Smoke testing is also known as Build verification Testing and Confidence testing, where we provide acceptance of build with no blocker and critical bugs.

It is a part of Acceptance testing. This is the first Test, which is performed on the build and if it gets passed then only other types of testing will be performed.

 It is shallow and wide. Smoke testing documents are rarely taken into consideration.

QA make sure that the basic functionalities are working fine by performing Smoke Testing.

This testing is a normal health check of the build of an application before taking it for deep testing. It can be done by manual as well as via Automation script.

Smoke Testing Cycle:

Example:

Let’s assume we are testing “Rediffmail” and we have modules as below

1. Login
2. Compose
3. Send mail
4. Video chat(new feature) 

During the testing, we found video chat is not working. Not even for any case. In such cases, there is no meaning of testing further because it is Show stopper. These things covered into Smoke testing. 

Sanity Testing:

Whenever Code changes or Bug fixes comes into the picture, we perform Sanity Testing to make sure present code changes has not affected existing functionality of the Application and raised Bug is fixed.

Sanity testing is mostly performed on stable builds, where we determine some regression area of build and perform testing on the impacted area as well to make sure no blocker and critical bugs there. It is a part of Regression testing.

 It is deep and narrow. In Sanity, testing documents are rarely taken into consideration. Sanity Testing usually not scripted. Mostly It can be done manually only. 

Sanity Testing cycle:

Example:

Let’s assume we are testing “Rediffmail” and we have modules as below:

1. Login
2. Compose
3. Send mail
4. Video chat(new feature):

  A. Mute

  B. Camera 

  C. Call

As we already got a bug in Video Chat functionality during smoke testing and this is fixed in the latest build. We will test Video Chat functionality and its sub-modules only to make sure code changes has not affected its submodules.

1. Mute
2. Camera
3. Call

There are lots of confusions regarding smoke testing and sanity testing that both have the same process and principles, but smoke testing and sanity testing have their own priorities and objectives. We can easily come to know, the difference between smoke and sanity testing with the help of below explanations.

Detailed comparison: