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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
3rd
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 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.6%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.6%
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

"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"It's an open-source solution with a very large community and available documentation."
"Within a single command, we can easily connect to the device."
"It is an indispensable tool for mobile automation helps much in converting manual test cases to automated scripts."
"The latest versions of the solution are stable."
"Because of the C# programming language, we can train our .NET developers to learn Xamarin and develop mobile apps easily."
"It brings about good code sharing strategies, which bring down cost and maintenance efforts."
"In Xamarin.Forms, it is valuable that one and the same code (including UI) works on all platforms, which is very convenient for cross-platform development."
"Recently, Xamarin has added a lot of features such as Effects, Behaviors, Triggers, etc. This has made the UI user-friendly, lively, and attractive."
"It significantly reduces development and test costs, and ensures that there is synergy between the platforms on product features and user experience."
"On the market, compared to everyone else, they're the top solution. They're the best solution out there that I could see."
"We very much like the XAML design techniques, multiple layout and pages, MVVMCross support, and portability across different platforms."
"It has significantly reduced the skill barrier for development and testers."
 

Cons

"Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes."
"They can improve test reporting, and more importantly on test scripts, by providing less constructs to automate more complex testing scenarios."
"Appium is not that scalable, if you're using real devices locally."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually. Its execution speed is also very slow."
"The user interface needs improvement because there are issues when setting up environment variables."
"The initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"Support-wise, it could be better."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually."
"I would like to see hot reload, similar to what Flutter has out-of-the-box."
"We need to think about partnering with IBM because there is a need for a big data partner; someone who has machine learning and can help us connect the app to big data."
"The solution always has room for improvement with price, integration, stability, and documentation."
"The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Microsoft and Google."
"The solution struggles a little bit with binding libraries."
"The major I see with Xamarin right now is that there is no visual editor"
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"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."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"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 so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"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."
"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 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."
"The product is inexpensive."
"You can build in Xamarin without paying any money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Educational Organization
14%
Marketing Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
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: March 2026.
885,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.