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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 has easy interaction with mobile."
"It is an indispensable tool for mobile automation helps much in converting manual test cases to automated scripts."
"It runs completely flawlessly and seamlessly every day."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"We chose Appium for the scalability and the ease of automation for both Android and iOS."
"Appium provides a record-and-play option, and the commands are the same as those that Selenium uses. So a person who has some exposure to Selenium will be able to write a piece of code in Appium."
"Many reference areas on the web can help you understand the product quite well."
"The combination of forms for cross-platform UI and C-Sharp for the programming language are my two favorite features."
"If you are already heavily invested in the .NET platform and C# development, Xamarin is the quickest way to make native iOS apps."
"It has significantly reduced the skill barrier for development and testers."
"It brings about good code sharing strategies, which bring down cost and maintenance efforts."
"With the help of Xamarin.Forms, we can effectively realize a cross-platform app with a very small team of 1-2 developers, targeting both iOS and Android platforms."
"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."
"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 solution is a cross-form technology, meaning that we don't have to create separate code to deploy apps across different platforms."
 

Cons

"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."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"Installation of this particular tool is tedious, and it gives you a good number of challenges at times."
"Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes."
"The product was a bit difficult to install. It wasn’t easy. We had issues."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"The setup and installation were a problem for us at first."
"The application platform could be improved."
"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."
"The stability of the Xamarin Platform could improve."
"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."
"All Xamarin library issues need to be taken care of as a top priority."
"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."
"From time to time, it is a bit harder to code some specific scenarios compared to the native approach."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The solution is free."
"Appium is open source; we can use it for 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."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"The solution is open-source."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
"The product is inexpensive."
"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."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"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."
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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: April 2026.
886,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.