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Appium vs Xamarin Platform comparison

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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
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (8th)
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 September 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.9%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.6%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.6%
Appium2.9%
Other90.5%
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 helps with test automation. We focus mostly on Java."
"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."
"Our clients have realized benefits by reducing their testing cycle from three days to three hours through Appium."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"The automation part is extremely helpful in streamlining our processes."
"It's an open-source solution with a very large community and available documentation."
"I haven't explored other solutions in this particular area, but what I like best about Appium is the fact that it shares functions with Selenium. The extension of Selenium functions allows me to use all of the methods that exist in that domain, and it just makes it simpler for me. I've been using Selenium for some time as well, so using Appium just seems like a natural fit for me."
"Many reference areas on the web can help you understand the product quite well."
"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."
"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."
"It brings about good code sharing strategies, which bring down cost and maintenance efforts."
"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."
"Xamarin is well-integrated with Visual Studio so it will feel very familiar to you once you start."
"I like Renderers in Xamarin. They allow us to use native-platform controls easily."
"The native features and Xamarin Essentials package are highly valuable to us."
"All of our mobile developers can easily substitute for each other on different projects and platforms."
 

Cons

"The deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require improvement."
"Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"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."
"When doing mobile testing Appium is difficult as you can't use it for mobile testing in virtual machines."
"The product was a bit difficult to install. It wasn’t easy. We had issues."
"If it had more facility for configuration it would be a spectacular solution."
"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."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
"Xamarin Platform can improve by making the enterprise documentation better. There's a lot of basic documentation of how to do many of the functions of the solution, but there's not much enterprise-level documentation."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"We have noticed that there have been stability-based performance issues with this product, which need to be improved."
"The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Microsoft and Google."
"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."
"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."
"We'd like to have some chat support functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source so it is 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."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The solution is open source."
"The solution is free."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"The solution is open-source."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"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."
"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."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
"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."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, so it is free to use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Educational Organization
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: August 2026.
911,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.