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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

"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."
"Appium's wide support of programming languages is valuable."
"The solution provides one roof or framework for both iOS and Android code bases."
"The automation part is extremely helpful in streamlining our processes."
"It's an open-source solution with a very large community and available documentation."
"For the particular use case we used Appium for, we felt that it served our purpose completely, and we haven't had any issues with the Python Client for Appium."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"Appium has easy interaction with mobile."
"We were able to optimize the service organization for one of our clients."
"The most valuable feature of the Xamarin Platform is the deployment."
"Xamarin Platform's best features are its single codebase, the support from Microsoft, and the free libraries."
"By the third year, we got a solid ROI."
"You can just write one XM channel core and it'll be used for both iOS and Android."
"Xamarin is well-integrated with Visual Studio so it will feel very familiar to you once you start."
"This solution is a cross-form technology, meaning that we don't have to create separate code to deploy apps across different platforms."
"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. Additionally, the dashboard is good."
 

Cons

"Appium can improve when the case fails, there should be a feature where you can generate the report from Appium."
"What needs improvement in Appium is its documentation. It needs to give more context on the libraries that Appium is using under the hood. For example, my team is using Appium for Android automation, and a lot of times, I feel that there's functionality that's available through the Appium interface, that exists within the UIAutomator, but there aren't a lot of useful or helpful resources on the internet to find that information, so it would be good to have some linkage with the underlying platform itself. Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes. For example, at times, there's a bug in the inspector application that doesn't allow me to save my desired capability set, so it would be nice to get that bug fixed, but overall, Appium is a good tool. The Touch Actions functionality in Appium also needs improvement. For example, if I want to initiate a scroll on the device that I'm running Appium on, sometimes Swipe works, but in other situations, I have to explicitly use action chains, so I'm not too sure what's the better approach. What I'd like to see in the next version of Appium is a more intelligent and more intuitive AppiumLibrary, in terms of identifying menus and scroll bars, etc., because right now, I'm unsure if I have to do a lot of export reversals to get to the elements I'm looking for. It would be nice to have some functionality built in, which would allow me to easily get those exports."
"The challenging part with Appium is that installation can be a bit tricky."
"They should add an in-built framework."
"The deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require improvement."
"I'm facing a lot of issues with my new juniors when they set up Appium for iOS."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"There is always a concern about the amount of code that is required to enhance the automation process."
"The application platform could be improved."
"The Xamarin.Forms could improve."
"They need to improve performance, especially for the Android platform. Also, some controls are missing in the Xamarin framework when compared to native controls; for example, the checkbox control."
"Xamarin Platform's performance base could be improved."
"Generally, when iOS products get updates, some issues can happen with Xamarin. Crashes happen from time to time."
"From time to time, it is a bit harder to code some specific scenarios compared to the native approach."
"I feel that the Android AppCompat library creates a lot of issues. A lot of development time is often wasted solving these issues."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"There is no license for this solution because it 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."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"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 open-source, but there are fees for deployment, the API Store and Play Store, and using third-party libraries."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software 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.
890,027 professionals have used our research since 2012.