Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Appium vs IBM Rational Test Workbench 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

Appium
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (8th), Regression Testing Tools (6th)
IBM Rational Test Workbench
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (19th), API Testing Tools (15th), Test Automation Tools (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Appium and IBM Rational Test Workbench aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Appium is designed for Mobile Development Platforms and holds a mindshare of 3.0%, down 5.1% compared to last year.
IBM Rational Test Workbench, on the other hand, focuses on Performance Testing Tools, holds 2.1% mindshare, up 0.5% since last year.
Mobile Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Appium3.0%
OutSystems10.7%
Mendix9.5%
Other76.8%
Mobile Development Platforms
Performance Testing Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Rational Test Workbench2.1%
Apache JMeter12.1%
OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional)12.1%
Other73.7%
Performance Testing Tools
 

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.
reviewer1513668 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist, ITE at a government with 10,001+ employees
Good reporting and interface, but supports limited types of protocols and requires low-level script editing
It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there. What it does, it does great, but it only gives you limited types of protocols. It supports between 8 to 15 types of protocols, whereas other test tools give you 20 to 30 types of protocols with which you can do testing and convert to script. It records Javascript-based scripts, and you got to know a little bit of Java to basically be able to edit them, but the level of editing you got to do is very low. I like that, but the ability to edit the script is not as good as Parasoft or LoadRunner, which have C-Script.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I haven't explored other solutions in this particular area, but what I like best about Appium is the fact that it shares functions with Selenium. The extension of Selenium functions allows me to use all of the methods that exist in that domain, and it just makes it simpler for me. I've been using Selenium for some time as well, so using Appium just seems like a natural fit for me."
"It can be used with different programming languages."
"We do not need to pay for the solution. It’s free."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"What I like about Appium right now is that it's like Cypress in the sense that............. to test the components in the way I want them to be tested."
"The most valuable feature is that it's easy to launch applications. Appium has everything that Selenium has. So many good tools support Appium. We can take some Excel sheets and use them to fill out the text box that's in there. We can also take screenshots of failures."
"The most valuable feature of Appium is it supports iOS and AOS and is open-source."
"It runs completely flawlessly and seamlessly every day."
"This solution provides for API testing, functional UI testing, performance testing, and service virtualization."
"Reporting is pretty good. Its interface is also good. I'm overall pretty happy with the functionality and use of IBM Rational Test Workbench."
 

Cons

"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."
"There is always a concern about the amount of code that is required to enhance the automation process. The idea of having less code or no code is what we would like to see in future updates."
"If it had more facility for configuration it would be a spectacular solution."
"An application developed on the Unity platform, such as a gaming application, objects are moving in that case. Interacting with those elements is still lacking in Appium. Appium doesn't have the internal library to play with the Unity platform. That is a huge lack right now."
"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. We have had some issues around just the results themselves and how predictable they are, but those are not issues with Appium directly."
"The initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"The challenging part with Appium is that installation can be a bit tricky. It can be challenging to set up in Android versus iOS environments."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there. What it does, it does great, but it only gives you limited types of protocols. It supports between 8 to 15 types of protocols, whereas other test tools give you 20 to 30 types of protocols with which you can do testing and convert to script. It records Javascript-based scripts, and you got to know a little bit of Java to basically be able to edit them, but the level of editing you got to do is very low. I like that, but the ability to edit the script is not as good as Parasoft or LoadRunner, which have C-Script."
"There are a number of things that they can do to simplify the tools, but the most important thing that they need to do is simplify the installation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"It doesn't really concern me. Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is a little bit on the higher side, although it is really good."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Mobile Development Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Non Profit
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

No data available
Rational Test Workbench, IBM Rational Performance Tester, IBM Functional Tester, IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Financial Insurance Management Corp.
Find out what your peers are saying about OutSystems, Mendix, Salesforce and others in Mobile Development Platforms. Updated: January 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.