What is the difference between severity and priority in bug reporting?
Answer
Severity describes the technical impact of the bug on the system — how badly it affects functionality. Levels: Critical/Blocker: system crashes, data loss, security breach, core functionality broken. High/Major: key feature doesn't work, significant workaround needed. Medium/Minor: feature partially works, workaround exists. Low/Trivial: cosmetic issue, typo, minor UI glitch. Priority describes the business urgency — how soon the bug should be fixed, regardless of technical severity. Priority is set by business stakeholders, not testers. Example of divergence: (1) High severity, low priority: a crash in a rarely used admin feature. (2) Low severity, high priority: a typo in the company name on the homepage (trivial technically, embarrassing to the business). Both dimensions are needed: a bug can be technically severe but unimportant to the business, or trivially small technically but critically visible to customers.