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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 library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"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."
"It is an indispensable tool for mobile automation helps much in converting manual test cases to automated scripts."
"Appium is a great tool, and I recommend it."
"It's one of the most stable solutions for mobile automation."
"It has flaws, but is still much better than any other cross-platform mobile automation tool."
"This is the best test automation tool for any mobile test automation engineer."
"The latest versions of the solution are stable."
"Xamarin.Forms exposes a complete cross-platform UI toolkit for .NET developers, and the advantage is that a single team can target multiple platforms (Android, iOS, and Windows) on a shared C# codebase."
"Xamarin makes it easy to create white label applications for all platforms."
"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. Additionally, the dashboard is good."
"The most valuable features are: One language for all platforms: C#; XAML for UI in Xamarin.Forms; provides 100 percent coverage of APIs on each platform."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"It has significantly reduced the skill barrier for development and testers."
"This solution is a cross-form technology, meaning that we don't have to create separate code to deploy apps across different platforms."
"It brings about good code sharing strategies, which bring down cost and maintenance efforts."
 

Cons

"When doing mobile testing Appium is difficult as you can't use it for mobile testing in virtual machines."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"It breaks down."
"Appium doesn't recognize IDs placed by our developers on nested elements when we use React Native for iOS; it just sees the whole page and one 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 installation part of Appium is somewhat clumsy, requiring numerous dependencies and configurations."
"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 Xamarin.Forms could improve."
"We'd like to have some chat support functionality."
"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."
"Needs to improve the customization of its screens."
"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."
"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."
"The stability of the Xamarin Platform could improve."
"They need to take a step towards independence from the UI platform. It takes a lot of time to adapt the native controls."
 

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."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The product is inexpensive."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"You can build in Xamarin without paying any money."
"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."
"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
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
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.
912,517 professionals have used our research since 2012.