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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

"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"For our company, Appium's similarity with Selenium is important as we use Selenium."
"What I like about Appium right now is that it's like Cypress in the sense that............. to test the components in the way I want them to be tested."
"Many reference areas on the web can help you understand the product quite well."
"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."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"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."
"Appium's wide support of programming languages is valuable."
"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."
"It is a true native solution, and we can use the cross-platform framework."
"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."
"I like Renderers in Xamarin. They allow us to use native-platform controls easily."
"Cross-platform development saves time and provides consistencies."
"Plugins like MvvmCross make a developer’s life easy."
"We very much like the XAML design techniques, multiple layout and pages, MVVMCross support, and portability across different platforms."
"I've never had the Xamarin platform cause a project to fail."
 

Cons

"The challenging part with Appium is that installation can be a bit tricky."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"Support-wise, it could be better. Whenever we get some issues, it may take some time."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"It should provide reliable and promising executions every time without any interruptions and avoiding any synchronization issues."
"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."
"Support-wise, it could be better."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually. Its execution speed is also very slow."
"For those who use only XAML to design the UI, it would be better if there was a better XAML previewer or designer."
"The architecture in the Xamarin Platform has to improve, there are some features missing."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
"It is common to find a problem that you would need to develop from the start since there are no third-party components to reuse."
"The android application compilation time needs to be reduced."
"We have noticed that there have been stability-based performance issues with this product, which need to be improved."
"The worst build issue concerns are the caching process MSBuild uses to reduce the build time."
"I feel that the Android AppCompat library creates a lot of issues. A lot of development time is often wasted solving these issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"The solution is open-source."
"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"The solution is free."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The solution is open source."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
"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."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"I think the solution is free."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"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."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction 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.
887,041 professionals have used our research since 2012.