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Microsoft Azure App Service vs Xamarin Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
43
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (9th)
Xamarin Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure App Service is 2.9%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 7.4%, down from 8.4% 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 easy to maintain and deploy."
"The most beneficial aspect of Microsoft Azure App Service is its automated DevOps deployment, which includes configurations that ensure secure connections to key vault and database resources."
"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."
"The user interface and the ability to quickly develop are the two main advantages of Microsoft Azure App Service. You can develop anything without having any coding experience and it is not complex and the components are easily customizable."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure App Service is autoscaling and resource grouping. Additionally, the integration works well, it is easy to do."
"It's very easy to use. That's one of the advantages for the business, that you don't need to struggle to configure your website and your app service. Microsoft made sure to make it stable and very easy to configure."
"The Logic Apps and Azure functions are very robust."
"The cost or price of Azure is lower than that of the on-premises version, which is why we might want to implement our solutions in Azure."
"The most valuable features are: One language for all platforms: C#; XAML for UI in Xamarin.Forms; provides 100 percent coverage of APIs on each platform."
"It significantly reduces development and test costs, and ensures that there is synergy between the platforms on product features and user experience."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The solution's most valuable asset is its shared code base in C# that is better for large apps."
"The most valuable feature of the Xamarin Platform is the deployment."
"You can create one solution in C Sharp."
"This solution is a cross-form technology, meaning that we don't have to create separate code to deploy apps across different platforms."
"Recently, Xamarin has added a lot of features such as Effects, Behaviors, Triggers, etc. This has made the UI user-friendly, lively, and attractive."
 

Cons

"I thought it would be better to have a template to publish directly to Microsoft Azure App Service using GitHub because there were some documents related to Azure DevOps."
"Can be improved by increasing the number of data centres worldwide."
"If you're on the cloud, you just get a web interface without much detail for additional configuration or the authority to configure the root or system-level configuration."
"Customers love it when a solution is affordable, but with Microsoft Azure App Service, you can start and stop it, and when you stop it, it won't be reachable and it won't be available, yet you're still being charged for it. You'll still be charged even if the solution isn't accessible because Microsoft Azure App Service runs on a shared virtual machine that keeps on running, so if there's a way to work this out, it'll be a great improvement to only pay for what you use. The solution should have no hidden cost and no extra charge when it's stopped. This is what needs improvement in Microsoft Azure App Service."
"From an IoT use case perspective, we're all good, however, we should have additional plugins."
"The solution needs better integration capabilities on the network side."
"I want more transparency in billing. It would be better if we could understand and control the billing to customize it. Also, Microsoft should provide more guidance about the widgets and subsets of various products. The Microsoft portfolio is so huge that it's sometimes difficult to choose the correct option. There's always a chance we are paying more than necessary."
"The main area that requires improvement is the function apps and logic apps, specifically from a VNet integration standpoint."
"The solution struggles a little bit with binding libraries."
"We need to think about partnering with IBM because there is a need for a big data partner; someone who has machine learning and can help us connect the app to big data."
"I feel that the Android AppCompat library creates a lot of issues. A lot of development time is often wasted solving these issues."
"Xamarin Platform's performance base could be improved."
"They need to take a step towards independence from the UI platform. It takes a lot of time to adapt the native controls."
"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."
"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."
"The recent move to .NET MAUI is a big change that's affecting a lot of the good features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The pricing and cost of this solution depends on the use and needs of a business."
"On a scale of one to five, with one being expensive and five being competitive, I would rate this solution as a four."
"The cost is reasonable."
"The product's price is low, especially if we compare it with other tools or clouds, like Google Cloud or AWS Cloud."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a five. The product is affordable."
"Less than USD $100 per month."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
 

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: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.