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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
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 June 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 6.8%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.8%
Appium2.6%
Other90.6%
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

"We develop apps using the React Native framework, and Appium integrates well for testing those apps. The Appium automation framework also has good integration with GitHub Actions and plenty of other tools and frameworks, including BrowserStack."
"Our clients have realized benefits by reducing their testing cycle from three days to three hours through Appium."
"Many reference areas on the web can help you understand the product quite well."
"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."
"It can be used with different programming languages."
"It has flaws, but is still much better than any other cross-platform mobile automation tool."
"The solution is stable."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"Xamarin Platform's best features are its single codebase, the support from Microsoft, and the free libraries."
"We were able to optimize the service organization for one of our clients."
"The native features and Xamarin Essentials package are highly valuable to us."
"However, the overall experience is really positive."
"Xamarin is an excellent platform that I could definitely recommend to others, despite the occasional issues we have had in the past."
"By the third year, we got a solid ROI."
"You can just write one XM channel core and it'll be used for both iOS and Android."
"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."
 

Cons

"Appium is not that scalable, if you're using real devices locally."
"The product was a bit difficult to install. It wasn’t easy. We had issues."
"Support-wise, it could be better. Whenever we get some issues, it may take some time."
"The deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require improvement."
"It breaks down."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"The last time I used it, whenever I selected and clicked on an element, Appium was very slow."
"Stability is an area that needs some improvement."
"Xamarin Platform is missing the code renderer."
"They have to focus more on the Xamarin compiling features and tools and maybe test some options."
"Generally, when iOS products get updates, some issues can happen with Xamarin. Crashes happen from time to time."
"Technical support could be better. We often get support from the community and only sometimes from the Xamarin team."
"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."
"The major I see with Xamarin right now is that there is no visual editor"
"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 so it is free."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"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."
"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."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"The solution is open-source."
"The solution is open source."
"The product is inexpensive."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"You can build in Xamarin without paying any money."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, but there are fees for deployment, the API Store and Play Store, and using third-party libraries."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
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: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.