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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 (7th)
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 (9th), Test Automation Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Regression Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Appium is 3.6%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear TestComplete is 9.7%, up from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Regression Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Luis Gerardo Meneses Hernandez - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for direct interaction with an application's DOM but complex configuration
What I like about Appium right now is that it's like Cypress in the sense that I can get to the new DOM of the application and select the components and create the functions to test the components in the way I want them to be tested. That's why I like it right now.
Prakhar Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Appium is it supports iOS and AOS and is open-source."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"It runs completely flawlessly and seamlessly every day."
"The solution is easy to use."
"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."
"The solution helps with test automation. We focus mostly on Java."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ability to integrate with Azure DevOps for continuous integration and deployment."
"The most valuable features are the desktop and mobile modules."
"Customer service and technical support responsiveness are high. Everyone is very professional."
"The ease-of-use and quality of the overall product are above average."
"You can record your actions and play them back later."
"The solution is great as a record and playback tool. It also has valuable regression testing."
"In TestComplete, I saw a conformed package of a tool that kept everybody in consistency. The team was able to regenerate further tests without having to manipulate more code because the record feature is great."
"It works very fine. It is fast on almost any machine, and it is also very well organized. I like its object mapping and its capability to find and interact with almost everything that exists on Windows."
 

Cons

"Support-wise, it could be better."
"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."
"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 initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"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."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"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."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"The artificial intelligence needs to be improved."
"There could be API interfaces with this tool."
"TestComplete gives support to do requests to a SOAP web service but has no support to do HTTP requests on Restful services."
"Occasionally, image comparison results in failures, possibly due to issues with resolution or font size on the server side, which can be challenging to identify."
"Name Mapping feature should be clearer. Whenever I use it, I do not really know what will work and what will not work."
"Increased performance with less memory and CPU usage."
"Right now, when you buy the solution, you need to pay for one solution. You receive one set up and you install it and it's just in that one machine. It would be ideal if they could offer one subscription where you can connect to different machines with a group subscription."
"The way objects are added and used when utilizing descriptive programming could be improved. It is a little unwieldy, compared to UFT."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"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."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"The solution is open source."
"It costs a few hundred per year, but I am not sure. It is not at all expensive as compared to other tools."
"My advice so far, is that while it’s not quite as powerful and easy to use as UFT, its price tag more than makes up for it."
"SmartBear TestComplete is an expensive tool."
"The solution's pricing is too high."
"The pricing is a little above average — it could be lower."
"It comes with a high cost."
"The solution is around $1500. Some are perpetual licenses, and some get a yearly report card."
"The license price for a physical machine is cheap, and for virtual machine, it is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Appium?
Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to.
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 do you like most about SmartBear TestComplete?
TestComplete has strong reporting capabilities. The reports they generate are really good.
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...
 

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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.