What are the advantages and disadvantages of integration tests?

Integration tests verify the interaction between multiple components of a system, allowing the detection of errors that are not visible during unit testing.

Advantages:

• Ensure that different parts of the application work correctly together.
• Help identify interface issues between modules.
• Increase confidence in the system's stability after changes.

Disadvantages:

• Slower and more resource-intensive than unit tests.
• More complex to write and maintain, especially with many dependencies.
• May be less detailed in error localization, as they cover multiple components.

For example, in Python, when testing a web application, integration tests can start the server and check API functionality along with the database, whereas unit tests check individual functions without external dependencies.