No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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

"For our company, Appium's similarity with Selenium is important as we use Selenium."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"This is the best test automation tool for any mobile test automation engineer."
"Appium is a great tool, and I recommend it."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"The solution provides one roof or framework for both iOS and Android code bases."
"If you are already heavily invested in the .NET platform and C# development, Xamarin is the quickest way to make native iOS apps."
"Cross-platform development saves time and provides consistencies."
"With the help of Xamarin.Forms, we can effectively realize a cross-platform app with a very small team of 1-2 developers, targeting both iOS and Android platforms."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The best part of this solution is that you can create one solution in C Sharp and it works for both Android and iOS."
"It brings about good code sharing strategies, which bring down cost and maintenance efforts."
"This solution is a cross-form technology, meaning that we don't have to create separate code to deploy apps across different platforms."
"This is a Microsoft-supported source platform so the technical support is very good and it's close to native."
 

Cons

"The setup and installation were a problem for us at first."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"Configuration-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement."
"Support-wise, it could be better. Whenever we get some issues, it may take some time."
"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."
"We haven't been able to fully leverage Appium for multiple reasons. I think number one is just that the tests take a long time to run. We have had some issues around just the results themselves and how predictable they are, but those are not issues with Appium directly."
"The tool needs to add a dependency manager."
"From time to time, it is a bit harder to code some specific scenarios compared to the native approach."
"There is room for increasing the scale a little bit further with the designer in the Visual Studio, more specifically, Xamarin.Android Designer in Visual Studio."
"Xamarin's profiling tools are only available for the highest tier of MSDN subscription and compatibility with platform-native profiling tools is rather lacking. This causes friction when working on performance-related issues."
"All Xamarin library issues need to be taken care of as a top priority."
"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 debugging functionality could be improved in Xamarin Platform because sometimes it takes very long to move through the stages of setting up the application build to the final deployment on a mobile app that resides in a physical device."
"The Xamarin.Forms could improve."
"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

"Appium is free and open-source."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"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."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"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."
"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 open-source, but there are fees for deployment, the API Store and Play Store, and using third-party libraries."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"You can build in Xamarin without paying any money."
"I think the solution is free."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Mobile Development Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
887,041 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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.