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System testing of software is testing conducted on a complete, integrated system to evaluate the system's compliance with its specified requirements. System testing falls within the scope of black box testing, and as such, should require no knowledge of the inner design of the code or logic. ^[1]

As a rule, system testing takes, as its input, all of the "integrated" software components that have successfully passed integration testing and also the software system itself integrated with any applicable hardware system(s). The purpose of integration testing is to detect any inconsistencies between the software units that are integrated together (called assemblages) or between any of the assemblages and the hardware. System testing is a more limiting type of testing; it seeks to detect defects both within the "inter-assemblages" and also within the system as a whole.

System testing is actually done to the entire system against the Functional Requirement Specification(s) (FRS) and/or the System Requirement Specification (SRS). Moreover, the system testing is an investigatory testing phase, where the focus is to have almost a destructive attitude and test not only the design, but also the behaviour and even the believed expectations of the customer. It is also intended to test up to and beyond the bounds defined in the software/hardware requirements specification(s).

One could view System testing as the final destructive testing phase before user acceptance testing.

The following examples are different types of testing that should be considered during System testing:

• User interface testing
• Usability testing
• Performance testing
• Compatibility testing
• Error handling testing
• Load testing
• Volume testing
• Stress testing
• User help testing
• Security testing
• Scalability testing
• Capacity testing
• Sanity testing
• Smoke testing
• Exploratory testing
• Ad hoc testing
• Regression testing
• Reliability testing
• Recovery testing
• Installation testing
• Idempotency testing
• Maintenance testing
• Accessibility testing, including compliance with:
  • Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
  • Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
  • Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Although different testing organizations may prescribe different tests as part of System testing, this list serves as a general framework or foundation to begin with.

• Software testing
• Unit testing
• Integration testing
• Test case
• Test plan
• Automated testing
• Quality control
• Software development process
• Computer accessibility

• Black, Rex; (2002). Managing the Testing Process (2nd ed.). Wiley Publishing. ISBN 0-471-22398-0