What is Compatibility Testing? Definition , Types & Tools
Compatibility testing is testing the application or product built with a different computing environment. It tests whether the application is compatible with the hardware, operating system, database or other system software or not.Â
Compatibility Testing may include:Â
- Test with each hardware with minimum and maximum configuration.Â
- Test with different browsers.Â
- Test cases are the same which were executed during functional testing.
Types of Compatibility Testing
1) Forward testing
Forward testing makes sure that the application is compatible with updates or newer mobile operating system versions.
2) Backward testing
- Backward testing verifies whether the mobile app has been developed for the latest versions of an environment also work perfectly with the older version.
- The behaviour of the new hardware/software has been matched against the behaviour of the old hardware/software.
Categories of Compatibility Testing
- Browser compatibilityTesting : Check if application is compatible on different browsers like chrome, firefox, edge etc.
- Hardware : check if application is compatible with the different hardware configurations.
- Networks : check if application is compatible with the different network like 4G, WIFI, etc
- Mobile Devices : check if an application is compatible with mobile devices and their platforms like android, iOS, windows, etc.
- Operating System : check if an application is compatible with different Operating Systems like Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.
- Versions:Â check if application is working with older and newer version of software.
Tools:
Some of the most popular tools used by testers worldwide for compatibilityTesting are:
- BrowserStack
- Testing Bot
- BrowseEmAll
- Simulator and Emulator.
- Adobe Browserlab.
- GhostLab.
- Spoon Browser Sandbox.
- IE Tab.
- Equafy.
- BrowserShots
- Virtual Desktop
- Secure Platform
- CrossBrowserTesting.