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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
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 April 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.7%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.6%, up from 6.6% 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

"Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to."
"What I like about Appium right now is that it's like Cypress in the sense that............. to test the components in the way I want them to be tested."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"The most valuable feature of Appium is it supports iOS and AOS and is open-source."
"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."
"When it comes to mobile automation, I recommend this solution because of its performance, and scalability over the competition."
"Within a single command, we can easily connect to the device."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"On the market, compared to everyone else, they're the top solution."
"Xamarin Platform's best features are its single codebase, the support from Microsoft, and the free libraries."
"The most valuable feature of the Xamarin Platform is that both the UI are the same in Android and iOS, in one project and Android and iOS, are applications for developing PCL projects."
"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."
"The solution saves us time by containing all the development work in one application instead of two and it's well-documented."
"The native features and Xamarin Essentials package are highly valuable to us."
"Recently, Xamarin has added a lot of features such as Effects, Behaviors, Triggers, etc. This has made the UI user-friendly, lively, and attractive."
"I think the best part about Xamarin is that you can create apps for both platforms using one source code."
 

Cons

"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually. Its execution speed is also very slow."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"The initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"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."
"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 should provide reliable and promising executions every time without any interruptions and avoiding any synchronization issues."
"There are compatibility issues between versions of various Xamarin components."
"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."
"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."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
"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."
"All Xamarin library issues need to be taken care of as a top priority."
"Needs to improve the customization of its screens."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"The solution is free."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The solution is open source."
"The solution is open-source."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, but there are fees for deployment, the API Store and Play Store, and using third-party libraries."
"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."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"The price of the Xamarin Platform is not expensive. However, the price of the solution depends on the application that is made. For example, if you have small applications, it's different from large or enterprise applications."
"I think the solution is free."
"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 a free open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

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.
886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.