QA Foundations
Monkey testing
Monkey testing feeds random inputs and actions to software to see if it crashes or misbehaves, surfacing edge cases and stability issues that scripted tests miss.
The name evokes a monkey banging on a keyboard: no knowledge of the system, just random interaction. It is useful for stress and stability testing and for finding crashes that carefully scripted tests never reach.
A dumb monkey acts fully at random; a smart monkey is aware of the application state and generates more plausible sequences. Monkey testing is closely related to fuzz testing, which feeds random or malformed data specifically to trigger failures.
- Random inputs with no knowledge of the system.
- Dumb monkey (fully random) vs smart monkey (state-aware).
- Related to fuzz testing; good for surfacing crashes and stability issues.
Related terms
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Last reviewed August 2, 2026