Email deliverability testing, and QA testing web apps with multiple account permissions, are critical aspects of software development and Quality Assurance (QA). Although disposable email websites and gmail addresses are a common choice for this task, they present several significant drawbacks for enterprises. This article will detail the advantages of using dedicated email deliverability platforms like Mailsac instead.
Limitations of Disposable Email
1. Security and Privacy
Disposable email platforms typically make all emails public. These websites are frequently crawled by scammers to acquire sensitive information.
Disposable email services often lack robust security measures, exposing sensitive test data. This lack of security can compromise the integrity of testing and risk breaches of confidential information. They rely on security through obscurity – random email addresses that are hopefully unguessable.
Disposable email providers typically do not have Information Security and Assurance programs, and cannot pass a Vendor Risk Assessment.
2. Business Agreements
The terms of service for disposable email services are often unsuitable for professional development and testing contexts. They can include problematic clauses and offer limited protections for users, which isn’t ideal for businesses. The terms and privacy policies tend to be non-negotiable.
3. B2B Interfaces
Disposable email services often lack capabilities for Business-to-Business (B2B) interfacing. This limitation can hinder the integration of these services into larger, automated testing suites, significantly limiting their usefulness in professional testing scenarios.
4. Uptime and Performance
Disposable email services are often slow and lack reliable uptime. These performance issues can introduce unnecessary delays into the testing process and create uncertainties around the reliability of test results. If an email was delayed, it can be hard to know if it was on your end, or theirs.
Advantages of Using Mailsac
Mailsac, as a dedicated email deliverability platform, provides a solution to these limitations and offers considerable advantages for professional QAs and software devs.
1. Enhanced Security
Mailsac prioritizes security, providing secure paid private inboxes and whole subdomains for testing.
You can test your application’s email functionality without risking sensitive data being leaked or public, or sold to a data broker.
2. Professional Business Agreements
Mailsac offers business-friendly terms of service, custom terms, P.O.s, multiple users, SSO and other features designed with the needs of professional QAs and software developers in larger companies with legal and security requirements. This provides a more suitable environment for business operations and testing.
3. Integration and functional testing
Mailsac provides powerful REST APIs, webhooks, and web sockets for integrating into CI/CD and workflows. Companies frequently integrate mailsac seamlessly into their automated testing suite. Using a consumer disposable provider often results in unexpectedly failed builds. Using a professional provider gives you comprehensive and efficient testing and enables continuous deployment.
4. Reliable Performance
Mailsac has high uptime and quick API and UI performance, ensuring a smooth and reliable email testing process. We believe performance is a feature.
5. Share test environment account email addresses
When you are testing a web application, you can use email addresses that are private to your Mailsac account to sign up for your app. Then share those inboxes with your teammates. For example, you may be testing a web app with two RBAC roles – administrator and readonly user. Each can have a unique mailsac email address. Your web app sends a sign-in link via email. All team members can access it (using mailsac’s multi-user or SSO feature). And since it’s not disposable email, the sign-in link to your app’s dev environment won’t be public.
While disposable email services may appear convenient, they come with considerable drawbacks for professional QAs and software devs. They can be against company policies because they may leak proprietary business information. Mailsac, with its robust features and focus on business needs, provides a far more effective solution for email deliverability testing.