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Appium vs SmartBear TestComplete comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Appium
Ranking in Regression Testing Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (7th)
SmartBear TestComplete
Ranking in Regression Testing Tools
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (7th), Test Automation Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Regression Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Appium is 5.0%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear TestComplete is 9.0%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Regression Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Siddartha Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 30, 2022
It's easy to launch applications.
I rate Appium eight out of 10 for ease of setup. When I first began using the product, I would rate it as six out of 10. Appium is challenging to set up for iOS and Android, but we can manage iOS automation on the Mac from Macintosh Missions. In Missions, we need to open our Appium project on the next board and create something like a bundle diary. The bundle diary from Appium doesn't work for outputs, so it should not work for our daily routine. We need to change the bundle ID and build the iPhone application. There are two ways to set it up. You can update the Appium server for HD and need to do programming and training. It will come in after 30 seconds or more.
Prakhar Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 25, 2024
Used for integration automation, user-based automation, and web automation
We have applications related to power plants, and we use the solution to do integration automation, user-based automation, and web automation The solution's most valuable features are the drag-and-drop feature, keyword-driven approach, and reusability of the scripts. The solution has introduced a…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is that it's easy to launch applications. Appium has everything that Selenium has. So many good tools support Appium. We can take some Excel sheets and use them to fill out the text box that's in there. We can also take screenshots of failures."
"It can be used with different programming languages."
"The automation part is extremely helpful in streamlining our processes."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"The latest versions of the solution are stable."
"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"Appium has easy interaction with mobile."
"The solution is stable."
"The product is stable for what we are currently using it for, and it is sufficient for us."
"SmartBear TestComplete performs some self-healing and has a feature called OCR (optical character recognition)."
"It is very easy to maintain tests with this tool. It covers all necessary items in the test plan. The most painful item in testing is maintenance. When changes occur, the tests should be maintained."
"The reporting is ready to use and doesn't require any setup."
"The initial setup is pretty easy and it's quick to deploy."
"It allows us to test both desktop and web applications."
"The most valuable features are the desktop and mobile modules."
"When compared to other tools, it is very simple."
 

Cons

"Support-wise, it could be better."
"The user interface needs improvement because there are issues when setting up environment variables."
"The challenging part with Appium is that installation can be a bit tricky. It can be challenging to set up in Android versus iOS environments."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"If it had more facility for configuration it would be a spectacular solution."
"I rarely use Appium nowadays because I'm now at the managerial level, but the last time I used it, whenever I selected and clicked on an element, Appium was very slow. I tried to debug it, but I still couldn't find the problem, so this is an area for improvement in the solution. Another area for improvement lies with the connector and server. For example, the effort to get into the local machine sometimes causes the emulator to become slow, which then leads to failure in testing, and this is the usual issue I've encountered from Appium. An additional feature I'd like added to Appium in its next release is being able to do automation in iOS without using XPath and the name of the element. In Xcode, you can use previous UI tests for detecting elements, but in Appium, you have to use Xpath and the element name instead of being able to directly put the X-UiPath, which is what you can do in Xcode. In iOS as well, sometimes the element doesn't have a name or a path. Sometimes, there's also no element."
"Appium can improve when the case fails, there should be a feature where you can generate the report from Appium. Once you're on a test case, automatically the screenshot should be captured which would avoid manual intervention. These features would be beneficial to migrate to Appium."
"Name Mapping feature should be clearer. Whenever I use it, I do not really know what will work and what will not work."
"The licensing costs are a little bit high and should be reduced."
"In the cross-browser domain, it has a few snags with Microsoft Edge and Chrome; although, these problems are not critical."
"Headless testing would be a big improvement."
"The initial setup of SmartBear TestComplete was complex."
"There could be API interfaces with this tool."
"The test object repository needs to be improved. The hierarchy and the way we identify the objects in different applications, irrespective of technology, needs adjustments. The located and test objects are not as flexible compared to other commercial tools."
"In scenarios where two of our engineers work on the same task, merging codes is a bit difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"The solution is open-source."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"The solution is free."
"I'm unsure if there's any cost associated with Appium. I got the free package which includes the server GUI application and the inspector application, and it was free to download, and that's all I need to get my work done. I'm not aware of any additional costs associated with the tool."
"We found out that we could explore features of the solution for 30 days trial. We can switch to a permanent license later if we want."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"My advice so far, is that while it’s not quite as powerful and easy to use as UFT, its price tag more than makes up for it."
"Buy modules on demand. If you have a four-person team and they will each automate tests only 25% of the time, it's better to buy a floating licence and share the tool during the work day."
"It is approximately $6,000 a year."
"The pricing is pretty reasonable."
"This is a pay-per-use service that is not expensive, and cost-efficient if you have a small team."
"The option we chose was around $2,000 USD."
"The price of SmartBear TestComplete could be less. The main challenge is when it comes to node-locked. They should use a subscription model, such as a monthly-based subscription or, a quarterly-based subscription. Their floating license is very expensive, and this high price should be reduced or provide, at a minimum, a subscription model."
"Overall, for us, the cost of the TestComplete platform and the three extra modules is around $8,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Do you recommend Appium?
I do recommend Appium. It is an open-source solution and completely free of charge. We use Appium and Appium Studio as our base for any type of mobile automation for testing. It has a great interfa...
What do you like most about Appium?
Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to.
What do you like most about SmartBear TestComplete?
TestComplete has strong reporting capabilities. The reports they generate are really good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SmartBear TestComplete?
The solution's pricing is too high. On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing nine and a half out of ten.
What needs improvement with SmartBear TestComplete?
The learning curve of the solution's user interface is a little high for new users.
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Cisco, J.P. Morgan, Boeing, McAfee, EMC, Intuit, and Thomson Reuters.
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. SmartBear TestComplete and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.