Alpha testing is a testing type that evaluates the functionality and performance of your product after the software development lifecycle is complete. The goal is to identify potential bugs and usability concerns in a controlled testing environment so you can determine how well it meets your business objectives before releasing software to users.
Beta testing happens after alpha testing is complete and is the first time real users outside the development and testing team interact with your new software. You use beta testing to gather feedback and suggestions from real-world users and make changes to the product experience prior to a full release. The goal is to evaluate the overall user experience in terms of functionality, reliability, and resilience in response to a more realistic set of user behaviors.
Both alpha and beta testing are types of user acceptance testing (UAT) and a vital part of the software development lifecycle. They are some of the best ways your team can create assurances that your upcoming releases go off without a hitch. Many testing types are available for your QA team, so it's essential that you understand the key differences between them to choose what's best for any situation.
| Alpha Testing | Beta Testing |
|---|---|
| Performed by internal testers with knowledge of the software | Performed by actual users under the guidance of internal testers |
| Tests software for bugs, functionality, and reliability | Tests software for usability, resilience, and user experience |
| Ensures software is ready for beta testing | Ensures software is ready for full release |
| Occurs in a controlled environment | Occurs in real-world scenarios |
| Happens at the end of the software development lifecycle | Happens after alpha testing is complete |
| Can require a significant amount of time to perform tests and make adjustments based on the results | Can be performed in a few weeks based on the type of software being evaluated |
Do you always need both alpha and beta testing?
The short answer is yes. Using either alpha or beta testing in isolation means you will miss potential issues with your software. Understanding how to use these user acceptance testing methods in tandem is the best way for your testing team to build a robust software experience for your customers.
To determine which types of testing you need to perform, first, look at where your team is in the software development lifecycle. Alpha testing is your next step if you've just reached the end of your development phase. Only once you've completed alpha testing should you move on to beta testing.
Alpha testing aims to establish baseline functionality
Alpha testing helps your team build more reliable software — you perform it in a closed environment with a limited number of internal testers who have a deep understanding of the software. Structuring your alpha test this way helps your team limit test variables throughout the process, document their experience in real time, and track outcomes systematically. There are two core types of alpha tests:
- Acceptance testing: The goal of acceptance testing is to validate that your software meets project requirements and desired business outcomes. It ensures all major bugs and reliability concerns have been resolved and your software is ready for beta testing.
- Usability testing: The purpose of usability testing is to ensure that your software functions correctly for all user test cases. You perform these tests to confirm that any new software is suitable for end-users and functions as intended based on user interaction.
The goal is to debug the code and create a seamless experience for potential users based on known business needs. During alpha testing, your team will perform quality assurance checks to confirm that the software operates as intended and without technical flaws or performance issues. Suppose your software is connected to a critical part of your product experience. In that case, you might also want to consider an extended alpha testing period to nail down core functionality before releasing a beta version.
Beta testing aims to streamline the user experience
Beta testing brings people in from outside your organization to help refine the user experience and build more resilient software. There are two standard types of beta tests available to your team:
- Closed beta tests: A closed beta involves a small group of participants who have been hand-selected to perform the tests on your new software. These users are likely the target personas who would benefit most from the release and have enough technical knowledge of your product to perform a more rigorous test.
- Open beta tests: An open beta involves a larger pool of potential test participants with varying levels of experience with your product. Open beta tests help you get a more comprehensive view of the experience with your software for different types of target users, allowing you to gather a broader range of user feedback.
A closed beta can be much easier to perform, given the constraints of a dedicated user testing pool. Open betas can quickly become challenging to manage as there is no telling how many people will participate and what kind of feedback they’ll provide. While customer satisfaction is one of the main goals of beta tests, you can’t dedicate an unlimited amount of time to addressing customer requests.
The goal of beta testing is to establish that the user experience for any new piece of software is acceptable to your users. When you do a closed beta, you can use the experience to build connections with your most influential users and cultivate interest in an upcoming release. You'll be able to gather feedback on usability concerns and the overall experience with your software application from external users in the real world — and use that feedback to guide how your software evolves in subsequent releases.
Use alpha testing to build more robust software
Your primary focus during alpha testing is to identify bugs, ensure the stability of your software, and validate its core functionalities. Alpha testing typically takes an in-depth look at your software using both white-box and black-box testing techniques. Implementing both testing techniques means the alpha testing phase will often take weeks to months, depending on the overall scope of your project and upcoming release.
Let's say you're an email marketing service provider and want to make a fundamental change to the way your editor works. Once you've built out the new editor, you would use alpha testing to validate that it functions as intended. For example, you might test the underlying HTML and CSS code to ensure the editor structures images and text correctly for each email provider. You could also test how the design elements perform across platforms: Is the subject line displayed correctly? Does the headline and image alt text function properly? Etc.
Your alpha testing team will be able to validate those new features against your business needs and make adjustments to catch any major problems before they go out for beta release. The best way to know how your alpha testing process works is to log the issues you encounter, create a process and plan for addressing those issues, and make adjustments to the product before moving forward with the next step in the software testing lifecycle.
Once you’ve reached a point where your entire team feels comfortable with the baseline functionality, reliability, and robustness, of your software, you can consider your alpha tests a success.
Use beta testing to craft a winning user experience
Beta testing occurs after you've fixed the issues identified during the alpha testing phase. You'll use this step to evaluate broader aspects of the software experience, such as usability, performance, user experience, and resiliency. Beta testing usually relies on black-box testing techniques, meaning it focuses on how the software functions from a user standpoint.
These tests are also your first opportunity to gather unbiased feedback from real-world users. That feedback helps you confirm the usability and the validity of your desired business outcomes.
If we take the email marketing example from earlier and move into the beta testing phase, it might look something like this:
First, your testing team will put together a group of users who match your target audience and release a version of the new editor using a feature flag.
Next, your testing team will instruct those users to interact with the new editor as they would typically interact with the previous version — creating design elements, adding content, making edits, etc. By working with these beta testers in real-time or via screen recordings, you can gather feedback on how the user experience impacts actual users in a real environment.
Then, you can take that beta test feedback and make adjustments to the software experience or log it as potential research for future versions of your product. Often, beta tests will give you insight into the types of things your users might use in a tool that can guide the product development process in the future. It’s important to consider that your beta testers will often work from a framework provided by your team so that you can run multiple beta tests based on different rubrics of success.
Alpha and beta testing work best together
When you understand how alpha and beta testing function in the software development and software testing lifecycle, you can use both techniques to help your team create a more seamless software experience for your users. Performing these tests in tandem ensures you don't miss out on critical issues that can negatively impact users after release.
