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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

"We do not need to pay for the solution. It’s free."
"Our clients have realized benefits by reducing their testing cycle from three days to three hours through Appium."
"This is the best test automation tool for any mobile test automation engineer."
"It's one of the most stable solutions for mobile automation."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"The solution is easy to use."
"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"Within a single command, we can easily connect to the device."
"However, the overall experience is really positive."
"The best part of this solution is that you can create one solution in C Sharp and it works for both Android and iOS."
"A single line of code works with android and iOS."
"I think the best part about Xamarin is that you can create apps for both platforms using one source code. That's the most powerful feature. When you develop something for Android, it also builds for iVerse as well. The cross-platform aspect of Xamarin is unique. The ability to develop both apps with a single code base is something very unique."
"Xamarin.Forms reduced the effort and time to build and market our solution, market our features, and get our solution into production."
"The solution saves us time by containing all the development work in one application instead of two and it's well-documented."
"We were able to optimize the service organization for one of our clients."
"The most important impact is the reduction in product lifecycle costs."
 

Cons

"Support-wise, it could be better."
"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."
"When doing mobile testing Appium is difficult as you can't use it for mobile testing in virtual machines."
"We previously worked with native applications, and there weren't any good mobile app testing tools. We started working with React Native, which works well with Appium, but it would be good to see better integration; the way elements are displayed can be messy. React Native is very popular nowadays, so it's essential to have that compatibility."
"It should provide reliable and promising executions every time without any interruptions and avoiding any synchronization issues."
"Support-wise, it could be better. Whenever we get some issues, it may take some time."
"The setup and installation were a problem for us at first."
"The tool needs to add a dependency manager."
"The solution always has room for improvement with price, integration, stability, and documentation."
"Xamarin Platform's performance base could be improved."
"The recent move to .NET MAUI is a big change that's affecting a lot of the good features."
"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."
"They need to take a step towards independence from the UI platform. It takes a lot of time to adapt the native controls."
"I feel that the Android AppCompat library creates a lot of issues. A lot of development time is often wasted solving these issues."
"We'd like to have some chat support functionality."
"All Xamarin library issues which need to be taken care of should be top priority."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The solution is open source."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"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."
"In most cases, it is sufficient to have free/community license. But if you plan to seriously develop production-level, highly polished apps, you need to use Xamarin.Profiler and the professional or enterprise license."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, but there are fees for deployment, the API Store and Play Store, and using third-party libraries."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, so it is free to use."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
"The product is inexpensive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Construction Company
16%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
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: September 2026.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.