Alpha, Beta and Official releases: What’s the difference?

Going through a white paper or the website of upcoming blockchain projects you’ll come across such terms as alpha, beta and official releases. These terms are very vital because they help us to understand the point we are in a project and the expectations at the stage of technical development.
Alpha Release
An alpha release refers to a website or application that is working but some functionalities are likely to be missing and a number of known and unknown bugs are likely to show up.
The alpha release is to allow users to test a website or application so that they can pass on feedback to the technical team in terms of ;
• Bugs found
• Additional functionality that should be developed.
• Desired changes to existing functionality.

A Beta Release
A beta release usually means that a website or application’s major known issues has been fixed but has not been tested enough for official release.
A beta release main purpose is to provide a fully functional demo of a website or application. This second phase of feedback means the technical team can;
• Make user-led modifications to existing functionality.
• Capture ideas for additional functionality.
• Resolve any other bug or performance issues that would prevent a fully signed-off official release.
An Official Release
An official or open release usually means that a website or application has gone through a rigorous quality assurance process and that all major technical issues have been identified and resolved. This implies that the website or application is now functional (100%), debugged and ready to be released to the general public.
For example, Gmail’s alpha release was only accessible to Google staff as an internal product. A public invitation-only beta release was rolled out in April, 2004, before it was made available (as a beta) to the general public in February, 2007.
Despite Google’s resources Gmail was not upgraded from beta status to an official release until July 2009.
It is not proper for a website or application to attract users before software is truly ready for use.
Users can be unforgiving and reputation for instability or poor quality of service is incredibly difficult to shake. It’s preferable for a website or application to have done their home work, be more stable and offer greater quality of service to her users than expected.
Credit: bordcrossingmedia.com