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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 (7th)
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 January 2026, in the Regression Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.6%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Selenium HQ is 5.5%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Regression Testing Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Selenium HQ5.5%
Appium2.6%
Other91.9%
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 solution is stable."
"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."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"It's an open-source solution with a very large community and available documentation."
"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The best feature of Appium is that it allows you to inspect the element. With the Appium Inspector, you don't have to install another application to do the inspection. I also like that Appium has Android device connectivity. Currently, most people use Appium as automation software, and I haven't found any other tool that's more powerful than Appium."
"The solution helps with test automation. We focus mostly on Java."
"It is a good automation tool."
"The most valuable features are ExpectedConditions, actions, assertions, verifications, flexible rates, and third-party integrations."
"It is stable. I have never encountered any concerning situations with Selenium HQ."
"Our platform runs into several thousand screens and a few thousand test cases, something which would typically take months to test manually. As of today, the entire process takes a little over two days to run."
"All the features in Selenium to automate the UI."
"It supports many external plugins, and because it's a Java-based platform, it's language-independent. You can use Java, C#, Python, etc."
"Selenium is the fastest tool compared to other competitors. It can run on any language, like Java, Python, C++, and .NET. So we can test any application on Selenium, whether it's mobile or desktop."
"Selenium HQ lets you create your customized functions with whatever language you want to use, like Python, Java, .NET, etc. You can integrate with Selenium and write."
 

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."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"For people that don't know about technology, maybe it's difficult to use."
"Shadow DOM could be improved and the handling of single page applications. Right now, it's a bit complicated and there are a lot of additional scripts required if you want to handle a single page application in a neat way."
"There are stability issues with Internet Explorer only."
"I don't have that much experience with it, but I know that Selenium is more used for websites. It is not for testing desktop applications, which is a downside of it. It can support desktop applications more."
"Selenium has been giving us failures sometimes. It is not working one hundred percent of the time when we are creating elements. They need to improve the stability of the solution."
"We do not have enough resources or enough people to employ and hire. So, I'm hiring whoever I find, and they don't always have enough technical knowledge to operate Selenium."
"It is not a licensed tool. The problem with that is that it won't be able to support Windows desktop applications. There is no support for Windows desktop applications. They can do something about it. Its user interface can also be improved, which is not great compared to the other latest tools. Anybody who has been working on functional testing or manual testing cannot directly work on Selenium HQ without learning programming skills, which is a disadvantage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source so it is free."
"There is no license for this solution because it 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."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"It is free."
"Selenium HQ is a free solution."
"I have been using the open-source version."
"Selenium HQ is a free and open-source solution and is supported by Google."
"It is an open-source product, it is free for anyone to use."
"Selenium is free software so we do not pay licensing costs."
"Selenium is open-source, so there are no setup costs associated with it."
"The pricing is open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
5%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Healthcare 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 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 do you like most about Selenium HQ?
Selenium's open-source nature is a key advantage. Its extensive support for diverse web technologies.
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.
 

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.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.