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Microsoft Azure App Service 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

Microsoft Azure App Service
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (10th)
Xamarin Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure App Service is 3.6%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.7%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Sharjeel Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Lets you manage security more efficiently, and supports multiple frameworks, but has limited multi-language support and integration
Limited integration is an area for improvement in Microsoft Azure App Service. Another area for improvement in the platform is multi-language support. That still needs to be added because, at the moment, my team still has to work on specific Python languages whenever the API calls need to be configured. The pricing tier for Microsoft Azure App Service also has room for improvement because it significantly varies. For example, you have premium and dynamic pricing, and people on P2 should be offered dynamic pricing or the high-priced tier on offer could still be worked on. I want a lifecycle pipeline feature, similar to Azure Pipelines from Microsoft Azure App Service. For example, when configuring the pipelines, I should be able to configure the cloud security posture for a specific deployment. By default, there should be a prebuilt cloud security option that can be configured before moving into the production environment. Microsoft Azure App Service should also give you a clue regarding the risks. It would be best if you didn't have to connect to other modules because that wouldn't be as beneficial to platform users, mainly because Microsoft Azure App Service has a lot of security development kits.
Prince Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates UI development with XAML, enabling shared UI code across platforms and reducing platform-specific work
I like its simplicity. As someone who didn't start my career as a dedicated developer, I was used to building websites or Windows applications. Transitioning to mobile app development meant learning new languages like Swift or Java. With C# and Xamarin, though, I could leverage my existing skillset. Xamarin, and specifically Xamarin.Forms, let me write my code once and deploy it natively to both Android and iOS. 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. The advantage is that roughly 90% of my UI code can be shared. This significantly reduces the amount of platform-specific UI work compared to having to write separate UIs for each platform. For the most part, Xamarin's integration with Visual Studio improved the workflow, whether I'm on Windows or Mac. Since I'm familiar with Visual Studio, it provides a comfortable development environment. Additionally, features like Hot Reload and the integration of tools like Copilot help streamline the development process. Overall, it offers a positive development experience.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The product is scalable."
"The technical support from Microsoft Azure App Service is good."
"The program is stable and we've had no technical issues so far."
"I like that it's a ready-to-use, out-of-the-box solution that provides all of the necessary functions for customers, such as codes that can be quickly switched from the production version, or from test and DEV versions to production."
"I would rate the product ten out of ten."
"The best feature is scalability, which allows you to target potential clients worldwide by connecting the application to a local server. This makes the application readily accessible, and the response time will be much better."
"Azure App Service has several features that are valuable, including its scalability and seamless integration with other systems, which support flexibility."
"What I found most valuable in Microsoft Azure App Service is that it's a PaaS. I also like that it supports Docker and multiple frameworks so that you can work on Java, Ruby on Rails, PHP, and Python."
"Xamarin.Forms exposes a complete cross-platform UI toolkit for .NET developers. The advantage is that a single team can target multiple platforms (Android, iOS, and Windows) on a shared C# codebase."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"It brings about good code sharing strategies, which bring down cost and maintenance efforts."
"It has significantly reduced the skill barrier for development and testers."
"The cross platform ability is a great asset."
"The combination of forms for cross-platform UI and C-Sharp for the programming language are my two favorite features."
"The native features and Xamarin Essentials package are highly valuable to us."
"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

"There are no issues with the solution."
"Having a surplus of tutorials from Microsoft, rather than relying solely on documentation or features from other sources like YouTube, can be beneficial."
"There is still room for improvement in terms of the maturity of the solution. Everything is available that we need, but the issue is that they are still upgrading. Even though they have Azure applications and automation services, they still need to mature more. There are many things that need to mature and the road map for this is quite long, taking another three to eight years to have a mature solution."
"The pricing is average. It could be lower."
"Limited integration is an area for improvement in Microsoft Azure App Service. Another area for improvement in the platform is multi-language support."
"It would be fantastic if Microsoft morphed after my exit service, removing it from subscriptions and moving it to different regions, especially for that service."
"The tool's UI is an area of concern that needs improvements."
"I would like to see some significant improvement in the technical support provision for this solution."
"The recent move to .NET MAUI is a big change that's affecting a lot of the good features."
"The architecture in the Xamarin Platform has to improve, there are some features missing."
"Xamarin Platform is missing the code renderer."
"We'd like to have some chat support functionality."
"The Xamarin.Forms could improve."
"The file size is a bit big, so you have to make certain layers."
"From time to time, it is a bit harder to code some specific scenarios compared to the native approach."
"There are compatibility issues between versions of various Xamarin components."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's price is low, especially if we compare it with other tools or clouds, like Google Cloud or AWS Cloud."
"Azure App Service is expensive compared to its competitors, especially its cloud-only version."
"As you move up the license tiers it becomes expensive."
"The pricing model of Microsoft Azure App Service could be made more clear. There is a scale and range and it can be complicated and convoluted. Some simplification is needed."
"I rate Microsoft Azure App Service a seven out of ten for pricing."
"The price of the solution is high overall."
"Microsoft Azure App Service is an expensive platform, but it depends on the data ingestion. There's a pay-as-you-go plan and a savings plan for compute, but total costs depend on data ingestion and disk space. For high performance, security, and isolation, Microsoft offers a disk space of 1 TB, with a pay-as-you-go price of $40 per hour, if I'm not mistaken."
"Less than USD $100 per month."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, so it is free to use."
"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."
"I think the solution is free."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Would you choose Microsoft Azure App Service or PowerApps?
Microsoft Azure App Service is helpful if you need to set up temporary servers for customers to run their programs in locations that other cloud providers do not cater to. When servers are closer t...
Do you recommend Microsoft Azure App Service?
I highly recommend Microsoft Azure. We have been using it for nearly four years. We mostly use it for creating and maintaining websites, such as content management systems like WordPress sites, whi...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure App Service?
One valuable feature of Azure App Service for us is its integration with Azure DevOps, which we heavily rely on in our development process.
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?
Xamarin Platform is free, and we use an Azure subscription at a relatively low cost for our builds. It offers a good value for money, although it requires time to make it work effectively.
What needs improvement with Xamarin Platform?
The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Microsoft and Google. The lack of robust documentation and support for third-party bin...
 

Also Known As

Azure App Service, MS Azure App Service
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Real Madrid, Absolut, AccuWeather, Heineken, NBC News, Paramount
Cinemark, MixRadio, Sqor Sports, Storyo, JetBlue, The World Bank, Cr_dito Agrcola, Applied Research Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure App Service vs. Xamarin Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.