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

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
12th
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 August 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.7%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.8%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.8%
Appium2.7%
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

"It runs completely flawlessly and seamlessly every day."
"We do not need to pay for the solution. It’s free."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The solution helps with test automation. We focus mostly on Java."
"The automation part is extremely helpful in streamlining our processes."
"The way Appium server interacts with mobile apps is fantastic. It provides all the information about the elements inside the app, Android as well as iOS. I can interact with the element quickly, just type some text or get some text values from the element - whether it's a drop-down, or web text, or a native element."
"Within a single command, we can easily connect to the device."
"The solution provides one roof or framework for both iOS and Android code bases."
"The solution's most valuable asset is its shared code base in C# that is better for large apps."
"It allows us to reuse our knowledge of C# and .NET Framework."
"The ability to reuse significant amounts of code between platforms, have a single code repository, and a single development team for all platforms has massive advantages."
"I would advise others to use the Xamarin Platform because it's the technology that is most stable in the market."
"Xamarin.Forms exposes a complete cross-platform UI toolkit for .NET developers, and the advantage is that a single team can target multiple platforms (Android, iOS, and Windows) on a shared C# codebase."
"Xamarin is an excellent platform that I could definitely recommend to others, despite the occasional issues we have had in the past."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Support-wise, it could be better."
"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 deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require improvement."
"One area where I think Appium could improve is in addressing security concerns for our data. Currently, we're unable to use cloud solutions like CloudForm due to security restrictions on our servers. We also face challenges in updating packages for the same reason. It would be beneficial if the solution could provide better support for auto-reporting and easier connections to mobile device farms."
"If it had more facility for configuration it would be a spectacular solution."
"Stability is an area that needs some improvement."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually. Its execution speed is also very slow."
"Support-wise, it could be better. Whenever we get some issues, it may take some time."
"The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Microsoft and Google."
"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."
"It would be better if they offered more certifications. They offer a number of certifications for Azure but none for Xamarin. This is something that could be provided for developers to show off their competency. Technical support could be better."
"They need to take a step towards independence from the UI platform. It takes a lot of time to adapt the native controls."
"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."
"The application platform could be improved."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"We'd like to have some chat support functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution 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."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"The solution is open-source."
"The solution is open source."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"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."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Mobile Development Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
908,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
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.
908,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.