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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 interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"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 way Appium server interacts with mobile apps is fantastic. It provides all the information about the elements inside the app, Android as well as iOS. I can interact with the element quickly, just type some text or get some text values from the element - whether it's a drop-down, or web text, or a native element."
"It's an open-source solution with a very large community and available documentation."
"Appium's wide support of programming languages is valuable."
"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 most valuable feature of Appium is it supports iOS and AOS and is open-source."
"The most valuable feature is that it's easy to launch applications. Appium has everything that Selenium has. So many good tools support Appium. We can take some Excel sheets and use them to fill out the text box that's in there. We can also take screenshots of failures."
"All of our mobile developers can easily substitute for each other on different projects and 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."
"We are a 5-member team and Xamarin provides us with a tool kit that crossbreeds from hybrid applications, letting us write a single line of code that works both with Android and iOS, which is a main feature of Xamarin and makes the product very user-friendly."
"We were able to optimize the service organization for one of our clients."
"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."
"My favorite feature of Xamarin platform is the Xamarin.Essentials package. I also like the changes seen in Xamarin's upgrade from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI, because in the older Xamarin Platform, Xamarin.Forms gave you multiple libraries of a particular level for a single platform, whereas .NET MAUI comprises a single, organized library that contains everything needed for both Android and iOS."
"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."
"I think the best part about Xamarin is that you can create apps for both platforms using one source code. That's the most powerful feature. When you develop something for Android, it also builds for iVerse as well. The cross-platform aspect of Xamarin is unique. The ability to develop both apps with a single code base is something very unique."
 

Cons

"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. The idea of having less code or no code is what we would like to see in future updates."
"It breaks down."
"The initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"I'm facing a lot of issues with my new juniors when they set up Appium for iOS."
"Configuration-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement."
"Sometimes, the Appium server won't connect with the mobile application because of some socket issues, so network connectivity between applications and the Appium server could be improved."
"The problem that I faced was that the communication, the roles, and the responsibilities, weren't defined between Microsoft and Xamarin."
"We have noticed that there have been stability-based performance issues with this product, which need to be improved."
"The solution struggles a little bit with binding libraries."
"For those who use only XAML to design the UI, it would be better if there was a better XAML previewer or designer."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
"It would be better if they offered more certifications. They offer a number of certifications for Azure but none for Xamarin. This is something that could be provided for developers to show off their competency. Technical support could be better."
"The file size is a bit big, so you have to make certain layers."
"The performance needs improvement, especially the dev tools, and also the ultimate output of the mobile applications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"The solution is open-source."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The solution is open source."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"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."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
"This is a free product, so there is zero investment on licenses and IDE."
"The product is inexpensive."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, so it is free to use."
"I think the solution is free."
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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.
892,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.