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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 May 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.7%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.9%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.9%
Appium2.7%
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

"The automation part is extremely helpful in streamlining our processes."
"Appium is a great tool, and I recommend it."
"It's an open-source solution with a very large community and available documentation."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"This solution has improved our organization in terms of efficiency."
"The automation part is extremely helpful in streamlining our processes."
"I like the app inspector; it's quite a good and useful tool for us, we can use it almost out of the box, it works well on Android, the solution is stable and very scalable, and it is free to use."
"When it comes to mobile automation, I recommend this solution because of its performance, and scalability over the competition."
"I've never had the Xamarin platform cause a project to fail."
"You can create one solution in C Sharp."
"Xamarin is an excellent platform that I could definitely recommend to others, despite the occasional issues we have had in the past."
"Their leadership is exceptional at both listening to the customer base and delivering innovative, best-in-class products."
"The ability to reuse significant amounts of code between platforms, have a single code repository, and a single development team for all platforms has massive advantages."
"A single line of code works with android and iOS."
"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."
"Because of the C# programming language, we can train our .NET developers to learn Xamarin and develop mobile apps easily."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"It breaks down."
"Installation of this particular tool is tedious, and it gives you a good number of challenges at times."
"I'm facing a lot of issues with my new juniors when they set up Appium for iOS."
"We haven't been able to fully leverage Appium for multiple reasons. I think number one is just that the tests take a long time to run."
"Stability is an area that needs some improvement."
"There is always a concern about the amount of code that is required to enhance the automation process."
"Support-wise, it could be better. Whenever we get some issues, it may take some time."
"All Xamarin library issues which need to be taken care of should be top priority."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
"I feel that the Android AppCompat library creates a lot of issues. A lot of development time is often wasted solving these issues."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"The performance needs improvement, especially the dev tools, and also the ultimate output of the mobile applications."
"However, Xamarin Platform lacks in app size."
"Xamarin Platform's performance base could be improved."
"Needs to improve the customization of its screens."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"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."
"The solution is open source."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"You can build in Xamarin without paying any money."
"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."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"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."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"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
20%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
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: April 2026.
892,776 professionals have used our research since 2012.