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Appium vs Selenium HQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 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 Regression Testing Tools
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (8th)
Selenium HQ
Ranking in Regression Testing Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Regression Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.4%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Selenium HQ is 5.3%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Regression Testing Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Selenium HQ5.3%
Appium2.4%
Other92.3%
Regression 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.
Sujata Sujata Ghadage - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Manager consultant - Digital assurance Services at adrosonic
Automation in testing processes sees improvement with multi-browser support and easier website interactions
Selenium HQ could improve by including a robust reporting framework, eliminating the need for external frameworks. The tool could simplify object identification, enabling users to generate XPaths without requiring detailed DOM understanding. Additionally, an automatic update mechanism for Selenium HQ would be beneficial, eliminating the need for manual downloads and updates of browser drivers when new versions are released.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The way Appium server interacts with mobile apps is fantastic. It provides all the information about the elements inside the app, Android as well as iOS. I can interact with the element quickly, just type some text or get some text values from the element - whether it's a drop-down, or web text, or a native element."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"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."
"It can be used with different programming languages."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The latest versions of the solution are stable."
"It's an open-source solution with a very large community and available documentation."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"Selenium WebDriver and Selenium IDE are useful."
"It supports most of the actions that a user would do on a website."
"The primary benefit is its cost and the ability to use the cloud."
"Selenium web driver - Java."
"The stability and performance are good."
"It supports many external plugins, and because it's a Java-based platform, it's language-independent. You can use Java, C#, Python, etc."
"It supports multiple processes, which is great."
"There is a supportive community around it."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"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."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"Stability is an area that needs some improvement."
"The user interface needs improvement because there are issues when setting up environment variables."
"The initial setup of Selenium HQ is difficult in many areas, such as the framework."
"It does require a programming skill set. I would like the product not to require a heavy programming skill set and be more user-friendly for someone without a programming background."
"Selenium Grid set-up is bit complex."
"For people that don't know about technology, maybe it's difficult to use."
"One drawback to Selenium is that there is nothing like an object repository, such as that found in QTP, especially considering continuous integration practices that have become common nowadays."
"The solution is open-source, so everyone relies on the community to assist with troubleshooting and information sharing. If there's a complex issue no one has faced, it may take a while to solve the problem."
"I would like to see some reporting or test management tools."
"In the beginning, we had issues with several test cases failing during regression. Over a period of time, we built our own framework around Selenium which helped us overcome of these issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"The solution is open source."
"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."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"Selenium is free software so we do not pay licensing costs."
"The solution is open source."
"It's open-source, so it's free."
"We are satisfied with the pricing."
"Selenium HQ is a free solution."
"It is free to use."
"The solution is open-source, so it is 100% free with no hidden charges."
"Since it is an open source. It is free to use. However my company see it as the future of load testing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
5%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Healthcare Company
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 Business41
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise51
 

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.
How do I choose between Selenium HQ and Eggplant Digital Automation Intelligence?
Selenium HQ’s biggest advantage is that it is customizable. Its other most valuable feature is that the driver interface is really helpful and user-friendly; Selenium HQ makes it easy to navigate t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Selenium HQ?
I will give an eight for my satisfaction with the pricing and licensing costs of Selenium HQ.
What needs improvement with Selenium HQ?
Some improvements can be implemented as compared to Playwright, which is why I rate it seven out of ten.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SeleniumHQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, experitest, Tricentis GmbH, SmartBear Software
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. Selenium HQ and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.