Updated July 5, 2023
Difference Between System Testing vs Integration Testing
System Testing is the testing performed on the whole system for its correctness with respect to the requirement specification provided by the client, whereas Integration Testing is the testing process executed for ensuring the functional behaviour of the Integration precision of the application. Integration testing is one of the various testing methods applied on an application. On the other hand, system testing will fit in various other types of testing methods, like functional testing, security testing, etc.
What is System Testing?
The system testing is done from a user’s perspective since here; the testing is done regarding the product as a whole. The entire internal code knowledge is not required while doing system testing since it is a black-box technique. System testing is further classified into functional and Non- functional testing, which the user or organization can choose according to their particular needs, as system testing is a high-level technique, so it is always performed after the integration testing is done and requires several iterations of the operation. System testing is one sweep operation to find out all the bugs are hidden in different modules, and the bugs generated rated in the system as a whole.
What is Integration Testing?
If system testing is done from a user’s perspective, it can be said that in Integration testing, the modules are compared from the perspective of each other. Since a system is made up of different modules, first, all the modules are tested individually, and then their different possible combinations with interconnecting interfaces are also tested to complete the process. The command data inside a system has to travel between different modules through their interfaces, so it needs to be ensured that logic used in each module is consistent with the logic used in other interacting modules since different modules are developed by different developers and their approach of and logic used can be different, integration testing successfully establishes consistency between the interfaces smoothing out the data flow across the whole system.
Different techniques like bottom to top integration testing, top to bottom integration testing, big- bang approach integration testing, sandwich approach integration testing can be used. The good thing is that this type of testing can be done along with the development of the product continuously, and the developer doesn’t always need to wait for a complete product to start testing; tools like integration tester are used to carry out integration testing.
Head to Head Comparison Between System Testing and Integration Testing (Infographics)
Below are the top 6 differences between System Testing and Integration Testing:
Key Difference Between System Testing and Integration Testing
Let us discuss some of the major key differences between System Testing and Integration Testing:
- The system is tested as a finished product from start to end in system testing while individual components modules are tested individually, as well as interfaces are compared according to their different possible combinations in integration testing.
- System testing is performed after integration testing has been executed successfully, while Integration testing can be started right after the product crosses the unit testing stage.
- System testing requires knowledge of the internal structure and overall programming language but not of the internal code of the application, while Integration testing requires the information related to the internal code of the application, along with the knowledge of interlinked modules and the way they behave with each other.
- System testing covers the horizon of both functional tests and non-functional test, i.e. both the performance and the usability of the system can be tested from a user’s perspective. Integration testing only carries out the functional testing of different integrated modules and relating interfaces.
- As the scope is limited to functional requirements, only black-box techniques are enough to carry out system testing on a software application while Integration testing makes the use of both black box techniques as well as white and grey box techniques, since the information on interfacing logic is required to carry out this testing.
- To replicate the real-life scenario, the tests are carried out on a staging server, which is similar to a production server where the actual application is supposed to be used, while Integration testing can be carried out using 3rd party tools and APIs.
System Testing and Integration Testing Comparison Table
Let’s discuss the top comparison between System Testing and Integration Testing.
| System Testing | Integration Testing |
| 1. System testing puts the main emphasis on testing the system as one whole module. | 1. Integration testing puts emphasis on functionalities interface between different modules. |
| 2. System testing can be carried out only by test engineers. | 2. Integration testing needs team-work between testing engineers as well as the developers themselves to be executed successfully. |
| 3. Since the testing here is done including all the external interfaces as a whole, any defect found is regarded as a system defect. | 3. In integration testing, the testing is performed between the relating interfaces and the different modules so, any defect found belongs to the individual module. |
| 4. Since the system testing is to be performed from the perspective of an actual user, the testing environment developed here are simulated to resemble a real-life scenario of user-software interaction roughly. | 4. For integration testing, the testing environment is simulated accordingly to resemble the interactions between two individual modules. |
| 5. System testing includes a plethora of different testing types in itself, which include parameters like functional testing, usability testing, performance testing, reliability testing, sanity, regression, maintenance, scalability testing, security testing, installation testing and retesting, etc. | 5., Unlike system testing, integration testing includes different approaches used to execute it, which are the big-bang approach, top-down approach, bottom-up approach, sandwich approach and hybrid integration at last. |
| 6. System testing is relatively simpler to execute and manage as internal coding is not considered. | 6. Integration testing is relatively complex to execute as it needs control over factors like database, platform, executive environment, etc. |
Conclusion
The testing phase needs different perspectives and techniques to be executed successfully; system testing and integration testing are very useful and handy techniques for cleaning and polishing software. A thoughtful approach and selection of proper tools to execute system and integration testing ensure that no bug escapes under the rug and that your code is as efficient and effective as it can possibly get.
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