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Appium vs Xamarin Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (6th)
Xamarin Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
3rd
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 March 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.7%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.6%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.6%
Appium2.7%
Other90.7%
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

"The most valuable feature of Appium is it supports iOS and AOS and is open-source."
"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"Appium has easy interaction with mobile."
"It can be used with different programming languages."
"We do not need to pay for the solution. It’s free."
"I haven't explored other solutions in this particular area, but what I like best about Appium is the fact that it shares functions with Selenium. The extension of Selenium functions allows me to use all of the methods that exist in that domain, and it just makes it simpler for me. I've been using Selenium for some time as well, so using Appium just seems like a natural fit for me."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The cross platform ability is a great asset."
"The solution's most valuable asset is its shared code base in C# that is better for large apps."
"It has significantly reduced the skill barrier for development and testers."
"Because of the C# programming language, we can train our .NET developers to learn Xamarin and develop mobile apps easily."
"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."
"A single line of code works with android and iOS."
"You can create one solution in C Sharp."
"Recently, Xamarin has added a lot of features such as Effects, Behaviors, Triggers, etc. This has made the UI user-friendly, lively, and attractive."
 

Cons

"Image recognition could be improved. We have some images in our mobile applications. It should be able to run from the cloud, so we can automate the catcher."
"It breaks down."
"Configuration-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement."
"An application developed on the Unity platform, such as a gaming application, objects are moving in that case. Interacting with those elements is still lacking in Appium. Appium doesn't have the internal library to play with the Unity platform. That is a huge lack right now."
"The initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"The installation part of Appium is somewhat clumsy, requiring numerous dependencies and configurations."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually."
"Appium could improve by enabling record and run techniques similar to what they have in other licensing tools, such as Micro Focus. We have to all write the code, and then we can proceed."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"The android application compilation time needs to be reduced."
"There are compatibility issues between versions of various Xamarin components."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
"The application platform could be improved."
"For those who use only XAML to design the UI, it would be better if there was a better XAML previewer or designer."
"From time to time, it is a bit harder to code some specific scenarios compared to the native approach."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"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."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"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 Platform is open-source, but there are fees for deployment, the API Store and Play Store, and using third-party libraries."
"I think the solution is free."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"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."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, so it is free to use."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Educational Organization
16%
Marketing Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 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 XAML code is then translated into the native UI elements for each respective platform.
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...
 

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: March 2026.
884,266 professionals have used our research since 2012.