Imagine you just built a toy, and before playing, you want to check if it even turns on, that’s like smoke testing. It’s a quick check to see if the basic features of software work without crashing.
Sanity testing, on the other hand, is when you check if a specific part of the toy works after you fixed or changed it. Both are important, but smoke testing is the first big “does it even work?” check, while sanity testing focuses on a small “does this fix work?” check. This simple example helps explain what is smoke testing and how it differs from sanity testing in QA.
Having been in QA for over 7 years, I always describe smoke testing as the ‘basic health check’ of a new build. Think of it like switching on a new device just to see if it powers up. It’s a quick, high-level check to ensure the core functionalities aren’t broken after a new deployment. If smoke testing fails, there’s no point in digging deeper because the foundation itself isn’t stable.
That’s the starting point when understanding smoke testing and sanity testing.
Right there with you, @prynka.chatterjee
From my experience managing fast-paced release cycles, I’d say sanity testing comes into play after that. If a developer fixes a bug or introduces a small update, we don’t run the full suite again, instead, we do a sanity test to confirm just that piece of the puzzle works. It’s like checking if the patch actually patched what it was supposed to.
So, when you compare smoke testing and sanity testing, smoke checks the whole system’s stability upfront, while sanity is like a follow-up to verify focused fixes before moving on.
Exactly, @ian-partridge — I’ve often had to explain this to junior testers on my team. To put it simply, smoke testing and sanity testing are both quick checks, but they happen at different stages and serve different goals. Smoke testing validates if the build is even testable, while sanity testing verifies that recent changes didn’t break the specific functionality they were meant to fix.
Together, they create a feedback loop that saves time, especially in agile teams where speed and confidence in builds are everything.