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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
44
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (10th)
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 February 2025, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure App Service is 2.9%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 7.2%, 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

"Some of the features I found valuable are auto-scaling, SSL integration, cost-effectiveness, and the certificates provided by Microsoft Azure App Service."
"The Logic Apps and Azure functions are very robust."
"Azure App Service has several features that are valuable, including its scalability and seamless integration with other systems, which support flexibility."
"Azure data factory is a good tool."
"The technical support from Microsoft Azure App Service is good."
"The product is easy to maintain and deploy."
"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 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."
"This solution is a cross-form technology, meaning that we don't have to create separate code to deploy apps across different platforms."
"Xamarin Platform enables you to use a single code language. This is beneficial for Android, iOS, and Windows platforms, so they can be developed over application or built over application."
"Cross-platform development saves time and provides consistencies."
"Because of the C# programming language, we can train our .NET developers to learn Xamarin and develop mobile apps easily."
"I think the best part about Xamarin is that you can create apps for both platforms using one source code. That's the most powerful feature. When you develop something for Android, it also builds for iVerse as well. The cross-platform aspect of Xamarin is unique. The ability to develop both apps with a single code base is something very unique."
"The native features and Xamarin Essentials package are highly valuable to us."
"It has significantly reduced the skill barrier for development and testers."
"For me, developing apps for iOS and Android is a dream came true, without migrating to Objective-C or Java. Xamarin enables me to do so."
 

Cons

"Lacking somewhat in template data flows."
"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."
"Licensing, pricing, and potential technical issues could be improved. Microsoft's support and technical aspects like installation complexity could use enhancement."
"The outbound connectivity is not great."
"Extended uptime and improved speed would be beneficial for both development purposes and the free tier of the service. Currently, the uptime is limited to a few hours per day, which could be increased to provide more continuous and efficient usage."
"Initially, there were some rare instances when the server went down because it was deployed on Linux."
"The pricing is average. It could be lower."
"There are no issues with the solution."
"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."
"Xamarin's profiling tools are only available for the highest tier of MSDN subscription and compatibility with platform-native profiling tools is rather lacking. This causes friction when working on performance-related issues."
"There are compatibility issues between versions of various Xamarin components."
"They need to take a step towards independence from the UI platform. It takes a lot of time to adapt the native controls."
"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."
"The performance needs improvement, especially the dev tools, and also the ultimate output of the mobile applications."
"The application platform could be improved."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Less than USD $100 per month."
"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."
"The cost is reasonable."
"As you move up the license tiers it becomes expensive."
"The pricing and cost of this solution depends on the use and needs of a business."
"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 cost depends on the App Service plan that you choose. There are a number of tiers available."
"We have no complaints about the pricing."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, so it is free to use."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"You can build in Xamarin without paying any money."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"I think the solution is free."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
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.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.