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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 October 2025, in the Regression Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Appium is 3.3%, down from 5.1% 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 Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SmartBear TestComplete9.7%
Appium3.3%
Other87.0%
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

"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."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to."
"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 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."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"The solution helps with test automation. We focus mostly on Java."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is regression testing tools."
"Complete works perfectly with CUTE. That includes all dialogues, right-click menus, or system dialogues, etc., which are handled well."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ability to integrate with Azure DevOps for continuous integration and deployment."
"The solution's most valuable features are the drag-and-drop feature, keyword-driven approach, and reusability of the scripts."
"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."
"The solution helps improve the stability of our product. It also decreases the work of our manual quality assurance engineers."
"Selenium integration."
"Customer service and technical support responsiveness are high. Everyone is very professional."
 

Cons

"Stability is an area that needs some improvement."
"Appium could improve by enabling record and run techniques similar to what they have in other licensing tools, such as Micro Focus. We have to all write the code, and then we can proceed."
"The user interface needs improvement because there are issues when setting up environment variables."
"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."
"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 need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"Configuration-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"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."
"In scenarios where two of our engineers work on the same task, merging codes is a bit difficult."
"The licensing costs are a little bit high and should be reduced."
"The solution needs Mac OS support. Right now, the solution has only been developed to accommodate Windows OS."
"There could be API interfaces with this tool."
"In the cross-browser domain, it has a few snags with Microsoft Edge and Chrome; although, these problems are not critical."
"Stability issues occurred only when connecting to the SourceSafe. Sometimes, after getting the latest version, the tool hangs and it should be reopened in order to recover."
"Increased performance with less memory and CPU usage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is 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."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"I'm unsure if there's any cost associated with Appium. I got the free package which includes the server GUI application and the inspector application, and it was free to download, and that's all I need to get my work done. I'm not aware of any additional costs associated with the tool."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"The licensing costs are in the range of $1,000 to $3,000."
"It comes with a high cost."
"We have a TestComplete 12 license."
"The product is becoming more and more expensive."
"This is a pay-per-use service that is not expensive, and cost-efficient if you have a small team."
"The price is less, compared to other products, such as QTP."
"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."
"The option we chose was around $2,000 USD."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
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 Business22
Midsize Enterprise20
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 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: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.