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Appium vs Ionic 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

Appium
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (6th)
Ionic
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 3.0%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Ionic is 5.4%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Ionic5.4%
Appium3.0%
Other91.6%
Mobile Development Platforms
 

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.
Dansteve Adekanbi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Frontend Developer Consultant at Modus Create
Great user acceptance and reliability, multiple teams not required, with prompt customer service
As a developer, I would say one of the improvements is more plugins. More plugins give you the ability to do more interactions with the framework over the library. As a user, I would say more flexibility in terms of look and feel. So far Ionic is very fluid. You might not really know, it is web-based technology. I know recently it has gone through a lot of updates, but it can also be improved and become stronger. Ionic allows you to get the best customization ever, but there is nothing like having more. The more customization you get, the easier it is for you to be able to build more quality apps.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"The latest versions of the solution are stable."
"It's an open-source solution with a very large community and available documentation."
"It can be used with different programming languages."
"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."
"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."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Ionic is easy to upgrade and is helpful for design purposes. It also is quite common and easy to use. It is a very reliable application. It's easy to write on and print. The UI is easy to use as well. My organization chose to go with Ionic because we can access both Android and iOS applications."
"Because it's a hybrid mobile app framework, it is easy for us to develop iOS as well as Android apps for our customers with the same resource skills. We didn't have to have separate iOS teams and Android teams to build the apps. We still have to use the Apple Xcode for iOS, but the main development happens with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. We don't have to write separate code bases in scripts for iOS and Android. We create apps using web-based technology."
"The main value of this solution for our business, is that it is a hybrid product that allows us to write code that is compatible with IOS, Android, and web documents."
"I like that I can place the code and escalate data storage. I also like that it's user-friendly. Nothing is complex in Ionic."
"The solution can support many languages."
"What I like the most about Ionic is live reloading, which enables us to develop new features without having to build the application again and re-check the functionality."
"Ionic's best feature is that it's not necessary to write your own custom codes as all the hybrid is provided by Angular."
"It's very flexible for UI development."
 

Cons

"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"The tool needs to add a dependency manager."
"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."
"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."
"Support-wise, it could be better."
"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."
"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."
"It would be good if the mobile version uses something other than JavaScript and HTML."
"There could be better support for augmented reality and other things. Geolocation and background app activity are some of the things that are a little more clumsy at the moment and could be improved."
"In a future release, we would like to have a little more support for the desktop environment. Currently it is still focused on mobile devices."
"The documentation could be improved."
"Ionic could improve in the Native mode because while we do testing it is difficult to find the root cause of problems. It could be more user-friendly."
"It would be better if it had a speed niche system. There are a lot of things we need that weren't in the latest version. But I think they will be adding something."
"As a developer, I would say one of the improvements is more plugins."
"There is a lack of a community environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The solution is free."
"The solution is open source."
"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"The solution is open-source."
"We pay 50,000 dinars per month."
"The solution's open source option is free with no licensing fees."
"Ionic is an open source solution, and there are no hidden fees."
"Ionic is an open-source solution, it is free."
"You can use the free version, but if you still want to buy it, the price starts from $499/month."
"You don't have to pay anything except for certain projects. For example, Appflow has some costs related to it but you don't have to use it. You can also pay for extra support."
"I think most of the plugins for Ionic are open source, and you can do a lot with many of the basic features. However, if you need to use a premium plugin for something like extra scroll list functionality, Ionic will ask for a certain sum of money."
"The starting cost for the enterprise option is around one hundred dollars per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
5%
Educational Organization
17%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
 

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
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
MRA, Napa Group, Sworkit, Airbus, Sense Corp, Interactive Gaming Company, Pacifica, Untapp'd, Diesel, National Museum of African American History and Culture
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. Ionic and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.