What is The Testnet?

This is the Sandbox network provided by NEAR

You can create an account there in a minute, get some free tokens and start making transactions.

The API functionality is the same as the Mainnet However the API endpoints are different

Creating an Account

Go to the official Testnet Wallet to create your account

You can try the different password options, but for a Testnet account email verification is enough.

Usually you will need to work with the Testnet API in your 'development' environment
and the Mainnet during 'production'

In order to switch between them, we usually use a config.js file with a function that returns the correct config based on an environment variable.