Priority (in bug tracking): How soon a bug should be fixed, based on business needs. It can be different from severity.
Example
A typo in the company name on the home page is low severity but high priority, because every visitor sees it.
Why Priority (in bug tracking) matters for IT interns
"What is the difference between severity and priority?" is a favourite interview question.
Where you will hear it
You will hear this term in testing and quality discussions, from test planning to bug reports. If someone uses it and you are not sure what they mean in your project, it is completely fine to ask; every team uses terms a little differently.
Related terms
- Defect: A flaw where the software doesn’t meet its requirements.
- Functional Testing: Testing that each feature does what the requirements say it should.
- Manual Testing: Testing software by hand — using it like a real user and checking the results — without automation scripts.
- QA (Quality Assurance): The work of making sure software meets the expected quality, through testing, reviews and improving how the…
- Regression Testing: Re-testing existing features after a change to make sure nothing that used to work is now broken.
- Severity: How badly a bug affects the system or its users.
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Related guides
Frequently asked questions
What is Priority (in bug tracking)?
How soon a bug should be fixed, based on business needs. It can be different from severity.
What is an example of Priority (in bug tracking)?
A typo in the company name on the home page is low severity but high priority, because every visitor sees it.
Why does Priority (in bug tracking) matter for IT interns?
"What is the difference between severity and priority?" is a favourite interview question.
Explore more internship terms
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About the author
Dhaivat has 16+ years of experience in the IT industry, working on AI and cloud technologies, project delivery, and engineering leadership. He has interviewed and mentored many interns, wrote The Lost Intern, and runs the non-commercial Career Impact Initiative, mentoring students for free.