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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
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (7th)
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 July 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 7.0%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform7.0%
Appium2.6%
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 solution provides one roof or framework for both iOS and Android code bases."
"The latest versions of the solution are stable."
"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."
"Appium is a great tool, and I recommend it."
"When it comes to mobile automation, I recommend this solution because of its performance, and scalability over the competition."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"It has flaws, but is still much better than any other cross-platform mobile automation tool."
"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."
"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."
"Cross-platform development saves time and provides consistencies."
"If you are already heavily invested in the .NET platform and C# development, Xamarin is the quickest way to make native iOS apps."
"It is a true native solution, and we can use the cross-platform framework."
"This is a Microsoft-supported source platform so the technical support is very good and it's close to native."
"Xamarin Platform enables you to use a single code language. This is beneficial for Android, iOS, and Windows platforms, so they can be developed over application or built over application."
"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."
"Xamarin Platform is suitable for the developer who knows C#, the .NET framework, and is familiar with XAML, as they can easily do mobile app development in Xamarin.Forms."
 

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."
"The tool needs to add a dependency manager."
"What needs improvement in Appium is its documentation. It needs to give more context on the libraries that Appium is using under the hood. For example, my team is using Appium for Android automation, and a lot of times, I feel that there's functionality that's available through the Appium interface, that exists within the UIAutomator, but there aren't a lot of useful or helpful resources on the internet to find that information, so it would be good to have some linkage with the underlying platform itself. Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes. For example, at times, there's a bug in the inspector application that doesn't allow me to save my desired capability set, so it would be nice to get that bug fixed, but overall, Appium is a good tool. The Touch Actions functionality in Appium also needs improvement. For example, if I want to initiate a scroll on the device that I'm running Appium on, sometimes Swipe works, but in other situations, I have to explicitly use action chains, so I'm not too sure what's the better approach. What I'd like to see in the next version of Appium is a more intelligent and more intuitive AppiumLibrary, in terms of identifying menus and scroll bars, etc., because right now, I'm unsure if I have to do a lot of export reversals to get to the elements I'm looking for. It would be nice to have some functionality built in, which would allow me to easily get those exports."
"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 deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require improvement."
"I rarely use Appium nowadays because I'm now at the managerial level, but the last time I used it, whenever I selected and clicked on an element, Appium was very slow. I tried to debug it, but I still couldn't find the problem, so this is an area for improvement in the solution. Another area for improvement lies with the connector and server. For example, the effort to get into the local machine sometimes causes the emulator to become slow, which then leads to failure in testing, and this is the usual issue I've encountered from Appium. An additional feature I'd like added to Appium in its next release is being able to do automation in iOS without using XPath and the name of the element. In Xcode, you can use previous UI tests for detecting elements, but in Appium, you have to use Xpath and the element name instead of being able to directly put the X-UiPath, which is what you can do in Xcode. In iOS as well, sometimes the element doesn't have a name or a path. Sometimes, there's also no element."
"Appium could improve by enabling record and run techniques similar to what they have in other licensing tools, such as Micro Focus. We have to all write the code, and then we can proceed."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"The architecture in the Xamarin Platform has to improve, there are some features missing."
"There are compatibility issues between versions of various Xamarin components."
"The problem that I faced was that the communication, the roles, and the responsibilities, weren't defined between Microsoft and Xamarin, that's really where the problem was in my opinion."
"The solution struggles a little bit with binding libraries."
"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."
"They need to improve performance, especially for the Android platform. Also, some controls are missing in the Xamarin framework when compared to native controls; for example, the checkbox control."
"However, Xamarin Platform lacks in app size."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"The solution is 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."
"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."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"There is no license fee because 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."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"The product is inexpensive."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, so it is free to use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
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.
903,871 professionals have used our research since 2012.