Glossary

Smoke vs Sanity Testing — The Clear Difference

Both are quick checks that run before deeper testing. Smoke tests verify the build is stable enough to test. Sanity tests verify a specific change works as expected.

Last updated: June 2026

Smoke vs Sanity

Aspect	Smoke	Sanity
Goal	Build stability	Verify a specific change/bugfix
Scope	Broad, shallow	Narrow, focused
When	After every new build	After hotfix / minor change
Documented?	Usually scripted	Often unscripted
Owner	QA + DevOps	QA

Example

Smoke: 'Can a user log in, see the dashboard, and check out a sample item?' Sanity: 'The hotfix changed the tax calculation for EU orders — does it apply correctly and not break US orders?'

Frequently asked questions

1.Which runs first in CI?

Smoke. If smoke fails, the build is rejected and sanity / regression don't run.

2.Are they automated?

Smoke typically is. Sanity is often manual or semi-automated because it's tied to a specific change.

Land your next QA role faster

Free AI interview practice, resume ATS review, and a live QA jobs radar.

Try AI Mock Interview Browse QA Jobs

Written by

Avinash Kamble10+ yrs experienceLinkedIn GitHub

Founder & QA Engineer at SoftwareTestPilot

Avinash is a QA engineer with hands-on experience in Selenium, Playwright, and API testing. He built SoftwareTestPilot to help testers find jobs and ace interviews faster. When not writing guides, he's mentoring QA engineers in the community.

Skills

Playwright
Selenium
Cypress
Postman
REST Assured
k6
TypeScript
Java
CI/CD

Industry experience: Fintech, SaaS, E-commerce

Company experience: Product engineering teams across India, US and EU

Reviewed by Priyanka G. · Senior QA Reviewer · 9+ yrs

Review date:June 1, 2026

Last updated:June 1, 2026

Content freshness: Fresh — reviewed in the last 6 months

Editorial notes: Every article is fact-checked against production code and current framework versions. Read our editorial policy, fact-checking policy and code of ethics.

Sources & references: Primary sources include official framework documentation (Playwright, Selenium, Postman) and hands-on production usage by the author.