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Appium vs Xamarin Platform comparison

 

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
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (7th)
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 July 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 7.0%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform7.0%
Appium2.6%
Other90.4%
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

"Overall, Appium is the best; it has the flexibility, simplicity, and it is elegant, technically more advanced, and even a beginner can start using Appium very quickly and master it in less time."
"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."
"For the particular use case we used Appium for, we felt that it served our purpose completely, and we haven't had any issues with the Python Client for Appium."
"The best feature of Appium is that it allows you to inspect the element. With the Appium Inspector, you don't have to install another application to do the inspection. I also like that Appium has Android device connectivity. Currently, most people use Appium as automation software, and I haven't found any other tool that's more powerful than Appium."
"It's one of the most stable solutions for mobile automation."
"Within a single command, we can easily connect to the device."
"It runs completely flawlessly and seamlessly every day."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The most valuable feature of the Xamarin Platform is the deployment."
"However, the overall experience is really positive."
"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."
"This is a Microsoft-supported source platform so the technical support is very good and it's close to native."
"The solution's most valuable asset is its shared code base in C# that is better for large apps."
"For me, developing apps for iOS and Android is a dream came true, without migrating to Objective-C or Java. Xamarin enables me to do so."
"On the market, compared to everyone else, they're the top solution. They're the best solution out there that I could see."
"The most important impact is the reduction in product lifecycle costs."
 

Cons

"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"Support-wise, it could be better. Whenever we get some issues, it may take some time."
"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."
"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."
"The setup and installation were a problem for us at first."
"When doing mobile testing Appium is difficult as you can't use it for mobile testing in virtual machines."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually. Its execution speed is also very slow."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"They need to improve performance, especially for the Android platform. Also, some controls are missing in the Xamarin framework when compared to native controls; for example, the checkbox control."
"The recent move to .NET MAUI is a big change that's affecting a lot of the good features."
"The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Microsoft and Google."
"However, Xamarin Platform lacks in app size."
"Xamarin Platform is missing the code renderer."
"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."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
"We need to think about partnering with IBM because there is a need for a big data partner; someone who has machine learning and can help us connect the app to big data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"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."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"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."
"The solution is open source."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"The product is inexpensive."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"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."
"This is a free product, so there is zero investment on licenses and IDE."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
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.
 

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: June 2026.
904,836 professionals have used our research since 2012.