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Appium vs Xamarin Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Appium
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (8th)
Xamarin Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.9%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.6%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.6%
Appium2.9%
Other90.5%
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

AS
Independent consultant, at OpenText
Efficient mobile testing with intuitive emulation capabilities and a user-friendly interface
Initial setup for Appium (especially for iOS) is not beginner-friendly.Consumes too much of your host machine's resources, potentially slowing down the machine.Appium Inspector often lacks deep insight or crashes with certain app builds. Improve test flakiness by intelligently selecting robust self-healing locators,simplified installers, better documentation, GUI-based config management,smart wait mechanisms and better failure logs.
Anubrata Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at Landmark Group
Unified codebase has reduced mobile development effort but now faces SDK and support limits
You can still develop public-facing apps with Xamarin Platform, but there are restrictions on Xamarin Platform App Store and Google Play that prevent you from publishing your apps because they require you to use their latest SDKs and their latest libraries. Xamarin Platform, having been discontinued a couple of years ago, is no longer compatible with the latest libraries and SDKs offered by Google and Apple. So you have to use obsolete libraries and obsolete packages, which means that when you try to publish them, your Google Play or Apple App Store will prevent you from doing that because you have not used the latest libraries. Right now, Xamarin Platform has been discontinued. Xamarin Platform had its flaws, and there were known issues. Xamarin Platform has a big community of developers, so even though there are known issues and flaws, there are known workarounds. In terms of stability, I would rank it at 7.5, but I believe 7 would be a more accurate rating, so 7 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is the best test automation tool for any mobile test automation engineer."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"It can be used with different programming languages."
"For our company, Appium's similarity with Selenium is important as we use Selenium."
"The solution is stable."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"The solution provides one roof or framework for both iOS and Android code bases."
"When it comes to mobile automation, I recommend this solution because of its performance, and scalability over the competition."
"In Xamarin.Forms, it is valuable that one and the same code (including UI) works on all platforms, which is very convenient for cross-platform development."
"I would advise others to use the Xamarin Platform because it's the technology that is most stable in the market."
"The combination of forms for cross-platform UI and C-Sharp for the programming language are my two favorite features."
"This is a Microsoft-supported source platform so the technical support is very good and it's close to native."
"You can create one solution in C Sharp."
"It is a true native solution, and we can use the cross-platform framework."
"Test Cloud, Calabash, SpecFlow, and Xamarin.UITest are the features which can’t be ignored because just writing code doesn’t mean your app will run flawlessly. You need to test your app on each possible device and configuration, which you can do easily."
"The platform is easy to learn as many tutorials are available on YouTube."
 

Cons

"If it had more facility for configuration it would be a spectacular solution."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"Support-wise, it could be better. Whenever we get some issues, it may take some time."
"Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes."
"The user interface needs improvement because there are issues when setting up environment variables."
"It should provide reliable and promising executions every time without any interruptions and avoiding any synchronization issues."
"The product was a bit difficult to install. It wasn’t easy. We had issues."
"They can improve test reporting, and more importantly on test scripts, by providing less constructs to automate more complex testing scenarios."
"It needs offline sync capabilities to store data on devices persistently."
"The stability of the Xamarin Platform could improve."
"Needs to improve the customization of its screens."
"The solution struggles a little bit with binding libraries."
"In Xamarin.Forms, we have the option to preview our UI designs, but the functionality can be limited. So, this is not fully functional. Since I have some knowledge of iOS, where when you write code or design in the storyboard, your design is immediately visible in the preview."
"The problem that I faced was that the communication, the roles, and the responsibilities, weren't defined between Microsoft and Xamarin, that's really where the problem was in my opinion."
"The solution always has room for improvement with price, integration, stability, and documentation."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"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."
"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."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"The product is inexpensive."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
"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 free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Construction Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
 

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 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-effective option.
What needs improvement with Appium?
The deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require improvement. Additionally, the wait time functionality could be enhanced as I experienced failures with longer wait times.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Xamarin Platform?
It is free to use Xamarin Platform as we utilize the community edition. Xamarin Platform was acquired by Microsoft and then made free, which happened way back in 2015, I believe, or 2014. After it ...
What needs improvement with Xamarin Platform?
You can still develop public-facing apps with Xamarin Platform, but there are restrictions on Xamarin Platform App Store and Google Play that prevent you from publishing your apps because they requ...
What is your primary use case for Xamarin Platform?
I have been doing mobile development using Xamarin Platform for which I have already shared my feedback earlier, and I am focused on utilizing Xamarin Platform for my projects.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Cinemark, MixRadio, Sqor Sports, Storyo, JetBlue, The World Bank, Cr_dito Agrcola, Applied Research Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. Xamarin Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.