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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 June 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 6.8%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.8%
Appium2.6%
Other90.6%
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 get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"When it comes to mobile automation, I recommend this solution because of its performance, and scalability over the competition."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The latest versions of the solution are stable."
"It's one of the most stable solutions for mobile automation."
"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."
"Many reference areas on the web can help you understand the product quite well."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"On the market, compared to everyone else, they're the top solution."
"This solution is a cross-form technology, meaning that we don't have to create separate code to deploy apps across different platforms."
"We were able to optimize the service organization for one of our clients."
"The solution's most valuable asset is its shared code base in C# that is better for large apps."
"I've never had the Xamarin platform cause a project to fail."
"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."
 

Cons

"Appium is not that scalable, if you're using real devices locally."
"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."
"The user interface needs improvement because there are issues when setting up environment variables."
"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."
"Appium could improve by enabling record and run techniques similar to what they have in other licensing tools, such as Micro Focus. We have to all write the code, and then we can proceed."
"They should add an in-built framework."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually. Its execution speed is also very slow."
"There is always a concern about the amount of code that is required to enhance the automation process."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"I would like to see hot reload, similar to what Flutter has out-of-the-box. There is "Live Reload" but it’s still in preview and was only recently announced."
"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."
"The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Microsoft and Google."
"Xamarin is reaching its end of life and they're moving it to .NET MAUI, combining it with other platforms and creating a centralized framework."
"The architecture in the Xamarin Platform has to improve, there are some features missing."
"Xamarin's profiling tools are only available for the highest tier of MSDN subscription and compatibility with platform-native profiling tools is rather lacking."
"The application platform could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's open source, so it's completely 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 price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The solution is open source."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"The solution is open-source."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"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 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 is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Educational Organization
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 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.
 

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.
896,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.