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Appium vs SAP Mobile 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

Appium
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (6th)
SAP Mobile Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Mobile App Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.7%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Mobile Platform is 3.9%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Appium2.7%
SAP Mobile Platform3.9%
Other93.4%
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.
ShahzadRafique - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Product strategy (Mobility & Islamic Banking) at AutoSoft Dynamics Pvt Ltd
Have faced challenges continuing use due to support discontinuation despite past effectiveness
There was no reporting functionality in the version we used. It all had to be done by another BI or reporting platform, so we used to actually migrate data from SAP Mobile Platform to that platform. Inherently, that product at that time had no reporting capabilities. It had to be done through some other platform. The only issue arose when SAP actually marked it as end-of-support. Otherwise, as a platform, it was fantastic. I don't think there was any major concern we had with the product itself. But when you mark any platform as end-of-support and we, being the OEM partners, it definitely created significant challenges for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It can be used with different programming languages."
"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."
"Appium has easy interaction with mobile."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"Appium provides a record-and-play option, and the commands are the same as those that Selenium uses. So a person who has some exposure to Selenium will be able to write a piece of code in Appium."
"We do not need to pay for the solution. It’s free."
"The initial setup is not overly complex."
"Ericsson is still working in Pakistan, running one of the biggest mobile wallet platforms in the country, and if SAP hadn't marked it as end-of-life, we could have penetrated this market for at least two to three more customers."
"Both platforms, the SAP Mobile Platform, and SAP, are highly valuable for our company because they facilitate integration, which can be expensive. It's very convenient to connect and create billing accounts through the SAP Mobile Platform."
"Ericsson is still working in Pakistan, running one of the biggest mobile wallet platforms in the country, and if SAP hadn't marked it as end-of-life, we could have penetrated this market for at least two to three more customers."
"Technical support is helpful."
"It's not that difficult to set up."
"With mobile services, they just carry the mobile phone with them, do it straight on the device, and it updates the SAP system, saving quite a lot of time for the end users."
"If we work with the mobile extension of the ERP platform, we save time."
 

Cons

"One area where I think Appium could improve is in addressing security concerns for our data. Currently, we're unable to use cloud solutions like CloudForm due to security restrictions on our servers. We also face challenges in updating packages for the same reason. It would be beneficial if the solution could provide better support for auto-reporting and easier connections to mobile device farms."
"I rarely use Appium nowadays because I'm now at the managerial level, but the last time I used it, whenever I selected and clicked on an element, Appium was very slow. I tried to debug it, but I still couldn't find the problem, so this is an area for improvement in the solution. Another area for improvement lies with the connector and server. For example, the effort to get into the local machine sometimes causes the emulator to become slow, which then leads to failure in testing, and this is the usual issue I've encountered from Appium. An additional feature I'd like added to Appium in its next release is being able to do automation in iOS without using XPath and the name of the element. In Xcode, you can use previous UI tests for detecting elements, but in Appium, you have to use Xpath and the element name instead of being able to directly put the X-UiPath, which is what you can do in Xcode. In iOS as well, sometimes the element doesn't have a name or a path. Sometimes, there's also no element."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"What needs improvement in Appium is its documentation. It needs to give more context on the libraries that Appium is using under the hood. For example, my team is using Appium for Android automation, and a lot of times, I feel that there's functionality that's available through the Appium interface, that exists within the UIAutomator, but there aren't a lot of useful or helpful resources on the internet to find that information, so it would be good to have some linkage with the underlying platform itself. Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes. For example, at times, there's a bug in the inspector application that doesn't allow me to save my desired capability set, so it would be nice to get that bug fixed, but overall, Appium is a good tool. The Touch Actions functionality in Appium also needs improvement. For example, if I want to initiate a scroll on the device that I'm running Appium on, sometimes Swipe works, but in other situations, I have to explicitly use action chains, so I'm not too sure what's the better approach. What I'd like to see in the next version of Appium is a more intelligent and more intuitive AppiumLibrary, in terms of identifying menus and scroll bars, etc., because right now, I'm unsure if I have to do a lot of export reversals to get to the elements I'm looking for. It would be nice to have some functionality built in, which would allow me to easily get those exports."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"We previously worked with native applications, and there weren't any good mobile app testing tools. We started working with React Native, which works well with Appium, but it would be good to see better integration; the way elements are displayed can be messy. React Native is very popular nowadays, so it's essential to have that compatibility."
"If it had more facility for configuration it would be a spectacular solution."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually."
"The only issue arose when SAP actually marked it as end-of-support. Otherwise, as a platform, it was fantastic."
"The cost of the SAP Mobile Platform is high, and there is room for improvement in its pricing."
"If it was low code or no code it would be ideal."
"The tool is not easy or simple to integrate with other infrastructures."
"One drawback is that SAP Mobile Platform apps are only available through the browser, making offline capability more challenging to implement."
"The only issue arose when SAP actually marked it as end-of-support. Otherwise, as a platform, it was fantastic."
"The toolkit to develop front end applications, especially native applications, is not that good."
"We don't have wider reporting capabilities within mobile services. There is some reporting functionality, which I would classify as very basic, just to indicate how many devices are being connected, but it's not that comprehensive in terms of reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"We found out that we could explore features of the solution for 30 days trial. We can switch to a permanent license later if we want."
"The solution is free."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"The tool is expensive. I rate the tool's price as an eight or nine out of ten."
"If you already paying for an SAP license and have SAP products that you are using, the price for SAP Mobile Platform is negligible."
"The cost of SAP is extremely high, and it's not affordable for everyone."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Retailer
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Logistics Company
6%
Non Profit
6%
 

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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
 

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.
What do you like most about SAP Mobile Platform?
One valuable feature of SAP Mobile Platform is its enterprise-grade standard and maintained APIs, available out of the box for easy integration with various systems.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Mobile Platform?
The tool is expensive. I rate the tool's price as an eight or nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with SAP Mobile Platform?
There was no reporting functionality in the version we used. It all had to be done by another BI or reporting platform, so we used to actually migrate data from SAP Mobile Platform to that platform...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP Syclo Agentry Mobile Platform, Sybase Mobile Development Platform, Sybase Unwired Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Swarovski, CareFusion Corp., Adarsh Credit Co-operative Society Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. SAP Mobile Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.