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Appium vs Xamarin Platform comparison

 

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
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (7th)
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 July 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 7.0%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform7.0%
Appium2.6%
Other90.4%
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 is easy to use."
"For our company, Appium's similarity with Selenium is important as we use Selenium."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"I like that Appium is an opensource tool, I also like its cross-platform flexibility, and Appium provides a record-and-play option with commands that are the same as those that Selenium uses so a person who has some exposure to Selenium will be able to write a piece of code in Appium."
"The solution is stable."
"Appium's wide support of programming languages is valuable."
"The solution provides one roof or framework for both iOS and Android code bases."
"When it comes to mobile automation, I recommend this solution because of its performance, and scalability over the competition."
"Plugins like MvvmCross make a developer’s life easy."
"I've never had the Xamarin platform cause a project to fail."
"By the third year, we got a solid ROI."
"It significantly reduces development and test costs, and ensures that there is synergy between the platforms on product features and user experience."
"The native features and Xamarin Essentials package are highly valuable to us."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The last time I used it, whenever I selected and clicked on an element, Appium was very slow."
"They can improve test reporting, and more importantly on test scripts, by providing less constructs to automate more complex testing scenarios."
"I'm facing a lot of issues with my new juniors when they set up Appium for iOS."
"Appium can improve when the case fails, there should be a feature where you can generate the report from Appium. Once you're on a test case, automatically the screenshot should be captured which would avoid manual intervention. These features would be beneficial to migrate to Appium."
"The product was a bit difficult to install. It wasn’t easy. We had issues."
"The installation part of Appium is somewhat clumsy, requiring numerous dependencies and configurations."
"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."
"An application developed on the Unity platform, such as a gaming application, objects are moving in that case. Interacting with those elements is still lacking in Appium. Appium doesn't have the internal library to play with the Unity platform. That is a huge lack right now."
"The stability of the Xamarin Platform could improve."
"They have to focus more on the Xamarin compiling features and tools and maybe test some options."
"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."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
"Creating an application works like a native application, but the file size is a bit big, so you have to make certain layers."
"We have noticed that there have been stability-based performance issues with this product, which need to be improved."
"The recent move to .NET MAUI is a big change that's affecting a lot of the good features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The solution is open source."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"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."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"I think the solution is free."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"The product is inexpensive."
"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."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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: June 2026.
905,601 professionals have used our research since 2012.