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Appium vs SmartBear TestComplete 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 (9th)
SmartBear TestComplete
Ranking in Regression Testing Tools
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (8th), Test Automation Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Regression Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.1%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear TestComplete is 9.7%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Regression Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SmartBear TestComplete9.7%
Appium2.1%
Other88.2%
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.
Prakhar Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Test Lead at Emerson
Used for integration automation, user-based automation, and web automation
The solution's most valuable features are the drag-and-drop feature, keyword-driven approach, and reusability of the scripts. The solution has introduced a new feature that helps us identify objects we cannot normally identify. It gives you a fair idea of objects, resolving the object recognition issue. The solution can be used to perform different tests on different machines.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For the particular use case we used Appium for, we felt that it served our purpose completely, and we haven't had any issues with the Python Client for Appium."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"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."
"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 has a very nice interface."
"Regressions and Smoke was done manually in the past, which has been replaced by Automated Testing."
"The most valuable features of the SmartBear TestComplete are self-healing, they reduce the maintenance required. The different languages SmartBear TestComplete supports are good because some of our libraries are written in Python, JavaScript, and C#. It's very easy to put them all under one project and use them. The are other features that SmartBear TestComplete has but the competition widely has them as well."
"The most valuable feature of SmartBear TestComplete for me is the image comparison functionality; it quickly detects any changes in the UI."
"This has allowed us to make significant product changes, new server deployments, and hosting changes with high confidence."
"With TestComplete, we need just eight hours (or even less if we're using multiple machines) for stability and stress testing, whereas manual tests would take 48 hours."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with Azure DevOps."
"Customer service and technical support responsiveness are high. Everyone is very professional."
 

Cons

"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"I'm facing a lot of issues with my new juniors when they set up Appium for iOS."
"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 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."
"Configuration-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement."
"Appium can improve when the case fails, there should be a feature where you can generate the report from Appium. Once you're on a test case, automatically the screenshot should be captured which would avoid manual intervention. These features would be beneficial to migrate to Appium."
"The setup and installation were a problem for us at first."
"Headless testing would be a big improvement."
"The test object repository needs to be improved."
"We did not maximize our ROI until we put somebody full-time on our TestComplete endeavours. The tool does have a learning curve, and it wasn't until we had an in-house expert on it that we began to see the benefits of automated testing over traditional QA roles."
"Customer Service can be slow to respond to electronic forms of communication and they do not have a way for a customer to speak directly to customer support."
"The solution doesn't have a very flexible pricing model."
"During the distribution of our regression test cases, the control IDs are not always recognized correctly."
"The pricing is the constraint."
"The learning curve of the solution's user interface is a little high for new users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source so it is free."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"The solution is free."
"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The solution is open source."
"The solution is open-source."
"The solution's licensing cost has increased because it has moved to some new SLM-based licenses."
"It costs a few hundred per year, but I am not sure. It is not at all expensive as compared to other tools."
"The solution is around $1500. Some are perpetual licenses, and some get a yearly report card."
"We have a TestComplete 12 license."
"The price is less, compared to other products, such as QTP."
"The license price for a physical machine is cheap, and for virtual machine, it is very expensive."
"It comes with a high cost."
"Buy modules on demand. If you have a four-person team and they will each automate tests only 25% of the time, it's better to buy a floating licence and share the tool during the work day."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

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 Business23
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise32
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SmartBear TestComplete?
I am not involved in pricing or licensing; our management team handles these aspects.
What needs improvement with SmartBear TestComplete?
While using SmartBear TestComplete, we are fine with the current capabilities, however, it would be beneficial to improve some performance aspects, especially the image comparison feature. Occasion...
What is your primary use case for SmartBear TestComplete?
We are using SmartBear TestComplete ( /products/smartbear-testcomplete-reviews ) for automation over applications.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Cisco, J.P. Morgan, Boeing, McAfee, EMC, Intuit, and Thomson Reuters.
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. SmartBear TestComplete and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.