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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
6.8
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (7th)
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 September 2025, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure App Service is 4.6%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 7.4%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure App Service4.6%
Xamarin Platform7.4%
Other88.0%
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

AntonioNascimento - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless integration and application hosting enabled through versatile service
When using a Linux App Service or containerized App Services, the logging is not as good as when using the Windows version. The Linux App Service should be more user-friendly, focusing on logging, troubleshooting, and similar features. With Microsoft Azure App Service, it is more difficult with Linux or other container solutions because there are many options. When creating an App Service, you can create it as Linux or Windows. After that, you can choose some stack or use Docker to container. When using Linux with container, the logging functionality is not as robust.
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

"Azure App Service has several features that are valuable, including its scalability and seamless integration with other systems, which support flexibility."
"The product's initial setup phase is fast, and creating a new component and starting is easy."
"Azure data factory is a good tool."
"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 most valuable feature is that it's an ideal solution when it comes to lifting and shifting monolithic applications from on-premises to Azure Cloud. It allows for a quick shift into the cloud without having to analyze and design very specific infrastructure and services for monolithic applications hosted primarily on-premises. Let's say that the team does not want to really redesign monoliths in a microservices-based application and that they want to make a quick move towards adopting the cloud tech stack. Then, Microsoft Azure App Service is probably the best option."
"Microsoft Azure App Service is an easy way to host applications and web applications, and it is very straightforward to automate the deploying and configure, making it very easy and useful."
"Debugging using Application Insights is a valuable feature."
"The solution overall is very good."
"Because of the C# programming language, we can train our .NET developers to learn Xamarin and develop mobile apps easily."
"Plugins like MvvmCross make a developer’s life easy."
"The platform is easy to learn as many tutorials are available on YouTube."
"The Xamarin platform can reduce overhead significantly through code-share and reuse. The typical team size for a Xamarin project is significantly reduced compared to purely native projects."
"The ability to share a platform-agnostic common core, or business logic, enables a mobile developer to write code for all targeted mobile platforms, independent of the individual developer's specialization in iOS, Android, or Windows. This helps not only during development but also enables easier maintenance of deployed apps, since bug fixes or feature additions can be often made in the platform-agnostic layer."
"Xamarin.Forms reduced the effort and time to build and market our solution, market our features, and get our solution into production."
"My favorite feature of Xamarin platform is the Xamarin.Essentials package. I also like the changes seen in Xamarin's upgrade from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI, because in the older Xamarin Platform, Xamarin.Forms gave you multiple libraries of a particular level for a single platform, whereas .NET MAUI comprises a single, organized library that contains everything needed for both Android and iOS."
"Xamarin makes it easy to create white label applications for all platforms."
 

Cons

"The logging and monitoring could improve in Microsoft Azure App Service."
"From an IoT use case perspective, we're all good, however, we should have additional plugins."
"Microsoft Azure App Service could improve by having better integration with on-premise solutions."
"There are no issues with the solution."
"The most valuable feature I find in Azure App Service is Microsoft Teams, as it is embedded within Office 365 and integrated with SharePoint."
"Microsoft Azure App Service could be improved in various application functions, as we have a need for improvement after monitoring and diagnosing each application."
"The solution is quite expensive. If you need more features, you need to pay for them."
"Licensing, pricing, and potential technical issues could be improved."
"From time to time, it is a bit harder to code some specific scenarios compared to the native approach."
"For beginners, the entire setup can be overwhelming because it involves setting up development environments for iOS, Android, and Windows at the same time if you want to target all three."
"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."
"There is limited support for UX widgets."
"The application platform could be improved."
"Xamarin Platform is missing the code renderer."
"We have noticed that there have been stability-based performance issues with this product, which need to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is high overall."
"The pricing for Microsoft Azure App Service is per hour, and you're billed per hour, and it depends on the plan you're using. Each plan can host up to a minimum of four to eight applications at a time, so the pricing is quite okay with how I use Microsoft Azure App Service currently, but with the little testing I've done, I saw that some other regions tend to be costlier than others. If the same SLE is delivered for all services, there should be a way to make the prices parallel across regions. Having more transparent pricing for Microsoft Azure App Service would give customers more comfort."
"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."
"We have no complaints about the pricing."
"Azure App Service is expensive compared to its competitors, especially its cloud-only version."
"Where there are different customer sizes, some customers consume $5,000 US dollars per month. I have some customers who pay and consume more than $20,000 US dollars per month, for example. It is determined by customer sizes and requirements, which vary from month to month."
"The cost depends on the App Service plan that you choose. There are a number of tiers available."
"I think the solution 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."
"The product is inexpensive."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"This is a free product, so there is zero investment on licenses and IDE."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
27%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise33
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

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: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.