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Appium vs SmartBear TestComplete vs Xamarin Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Mobile Development Platforms
Test Automation Tools
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Abhishek-Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Has cross-platform flexibility and a record-and-play option
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 some limitations in terms of writing code using simulators and online cloud devices. I faced challenges with native based scenarios, battery turn out percentage, battery charging percentage, and memory capacity. The other challenge I faced involved codes changing from device to device. For example, the piece of code that works in iOS version 10.1 won't work in iOS version 6.0. In upcoming releases, if they can reduce some more of the dependencies like SDK, UIAutomator, etc., it would be great. That is, I'd like to see a consolidated package or bundle release that is much more user-friendly.
Prakhar Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for 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 new feature that helps us identify objects we cannot normally identify. It gives you a fair idea of objects, resolving the object recognition issue. The solution can be used to perform different tests on different machines.
Prince Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates UI development with XAML, enabling shared UI code across platforms and reducing platform-specific work
I like its simplicity. As someone who didn't start my career as a dedicated developer, I was used to building websites or Windows applications. Transitioning to mobile app development meant learning new languages like Swift or Java. With C# and Xamarin, though, I could leverage my existing skillset. Xamarin, and specifically Xamarin.Forms, let me write my code once and deploy it natively to both Android and iOS. Xamarin.Forms are very useful. Essentially, it's a framework that allows me to create the UI mostly in XAML. This XAML code is then translated into the native UI elements for each respective platform. The advantage is that roughly 90% of my UI code can be shared. This significantly reduces the amount of platform-specific UI work compared to having to write separate UIs for each platform. For the most part, Xamarin's integration with Visual Studio improved the workflow, whether I'm on Windows or Mac. Since I'm familiar with Visual Studio, it provides a comfortable development environment. Additionally, features like Hot Reload and the integration of tools like Copilot help streamline the development process. Overall, it offers a positive development experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution helps with test automation. We focus mostly on Java."
"The solution is stable."
"The latest versions of the solution are stable."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to."
"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."
"Appium's wide support of programming languages is valuable."
"The most valuable features of Appium are the in-built functionality, which we can use in our code. For example, move back, move front, navigate one page before, and navigate one page ahead. You can do this by using the in-built functions from Appium."
"Runs in different remote machines. We have multiple versions of the software being tested."
"The most valuable features are the desktop and mobile modules."
"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 initial setup is pretty easy and it's quick to deploy."
"The ease-of-use and quality of the overall product are above average."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ability to integrate with Azure DevOps for continuous integration and deployment."
"TestComplete is simple, it's a very easy-to-use tool."
"You can record your actions and play them back later."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"Their leadership is exceptional at both listening to the customer base and delivering innovative, best-in-class products."
"The most valuable features of the Xamarin Platform are that it has cross-platform development, one code base serves a purpose on both, and the grid layout is a lifesaver."
"My favorite feature of Xamarin platform is the Xamarin.Essentials package. I also like the changes seen in Xamarin's upgrade from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI, because in the older Xamarin Platform, Xamarin.Forms gave you multiple libraries of a particular level for a single platform, whereas .NET MAUI comprises a single, organized library that contains everything needed for both Android and iOS."
"You can just write one XM channel core and it'll be used for both iOS and Android."
"Xamarin.Forms are very useful. Essentially, it's a framework that allows me to create the UI mostly in XAML. This XAML code is then translated into the native UI elements for each respective platform."
"It brings about good code sharing strategies, which bring down cost and maintenance efforts."
"The cross platform ability is a great asset."
 

Cons

"Configuration-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement."
"Stability is an area that needs some improvement."
"The initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"It breaks down."
"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."
"We haven't been able to fully leverage Appium for multiple reasons. I think number one is just that the tests take a long time to run. We have had some issues around just the results themselves and how predictable they are, but those are not issues with Appium directly."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"This solution could be improved by making it easier to visualize where there is a failure without having to look at it in detail."
"In scenarios where two of our engineers work on the same task, merging codes is a bit difficult."
"TestComplete gives support to do requests to a SOAP web service but has no support to do HTTP requests on Restful services."
"Name Mapping feature should be clearer. Whenever I use it, I do not really know what will work and what will not work."
"In the cross-browser domain, it has a few snags with Microsoft Edge and Chrome; although, these problems are not critical."
"There could be API interfaces with this tool."
"Headless testing would be a big improvement."
"To bring it up to a 10, I would be looking for the addition of some key functional API testing."
"They need to take a step towards independence from the UI platform. It takes a lot of time to adapt the native controls."
"The architecture in the Xamarin Platform has to improve, there are some features missing."
"Xamarin Platform can improve if there was a virtual test environment so we did not have to have a Mac system for the iOS testing. At this time You must have a Mac to deploy or generate IBA profiles."
"The problem that I faced was that the communication, the roles, and the responsibilities, weren't defined between Microsoft and Xamarin."
"I would like to see hot reload, similar to what Flutter has out-of-the-box. There is "Live Reload" but it’s still in preview and was only recently announced."
"The solution always has room for improvement with price, integration, stability, and documentation."
"Xamarin's profiling tools are only available for the highest tier of MSDN subscription and compatibility with platform-native profiling tools is rather lacking. This causes friction when working on performance-related issues."
"Xamarin Platform can improve by making the enterprise documentation better. There's a lot of basic documentation of how to do many of the functions of the solution, but there's not much enterprise-level documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"The solution is open source."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The solution is free."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"The solution is open-source."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"The price is less, compared to other products, such as QTP."
"The solution's pricing is too high."
"The solution's licensing cost has increased because it has moved to some new SLM-based licenses."
"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."
"SmartBear TestComplete is an expensive tool."
"Overall, for us, the cost of the TestComplete platform and the three extra modules is around $8,000."
"The option we chose was around $2,000 USD."
"The licensing costs are in the range of $1,000 to $3,000."
"The product is inexpensive."
"In most cases, it is sufficient to have free/community license. But if you plan to seriously develop production-level, highly polished apps, you need to use Xamarin.Profiler and the professional or enterprise license."
"Xamarin is available under several licensing arrangements. Each developer needs one license at least. All features, especially the Profiler, unlock only with the highest tier."
"I think the solution is free."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
18%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
 

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 a...
What do you like most about Appium?
Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appium?
My experience with Appium from a pricing perspective is favorable due to it being open source, making it a cost-effec...
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?
I am not involved in pricing or licensing; our management team handles these aspects.
What needs improvement with SmartBear TestComplete?
While using SmartBear TestComplete, we are fine with the current capabilities, however, it would be beneficial to imp...
What do you like most about Xamarin Platform?
Xamarin.Forms are very useful. Essentially, it's a framework that allows me to create the UI mostly in XAML. This XAM...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Xamarin Platform?
Xamarin Platform is free, and we use an Azure subscription at a relatively low cost for our builds. It offers a good ...
What needs improvement with Xamarin Platform?
The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Micros...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Cisco, J.P. Morgan, Boeing, McAfee, EMC, Intuit, and Thomson Reuters.
Cinemark, MixRadio, Sqor Sports, Storyo, JetBlue, The World Bank, Cr_dito Agrcola, Applied Research Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about OutSystems, Mendix, Salesforce and others in Mobile Development Platforms. Updated: April 2025.
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