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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

"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."
"Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to."
"It has flaws, but is still much better than any other cross-platform mobile automation tool."
"When it comes to mobile automation, I recommend this solution because of its performance, and scalability over the competition."
"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."
"This solution has improved our organization in terms of efficiency."
"We do not need to pay for the solution. It’s free."
"Appium is a great tool, and I recommend it."
"Recording and playback of tests were easier with SmartBear TestComplete...It is a scalable solution."
"The Object Spy has surpassed any other "spy" tools I have ever used."
"Mainly, when we did an evaluation and comparison, TestComplete had two big advantages - Good technology support Relatively low price in comparison to other vendor tools"
"The automation has improved over time, allowing it to integrate with other external tools for defect tracking."
"In all projects where I participated it helped significantly improve and speed up regression testing, which is usually bottleneck before release."
"This has allowed us to make significant product changes, new server deployments, and hosting changes with high confidence."
"We already have the UI smoke test and have integrated to our build system, which runs each day for multiple versions of the product and saves us a lot of time."
"I like the cross browser compatibility, as it saves a lot of time re-writing scripts to accommodate different browsers."
 

Cons

"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"The initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"The deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require 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."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes."
"Support-wise, it could be better. Whenever we get some issues, it may take some time."
"They should add an in-built framework."
"They have some benefits which TestComplete doesn't have, but in general TestComplete overcomes them."
"The web testing framework of TestComplete is not very helpful for an Automation Engineer; it requires the same effort as Selenium, and in most cases, Selenium proves to be a better testing tool for web-based testing."
"Technical support can be improved by being more efficient in responding to questions."
"There often are issues with web test execution."
"From my understanding, the product has changed significantly since v5 was released. I don’t know that it has necessarily improved, for my needs."
"Technical Support: Not so helpful most of the times. They always fail to produce a work around."
"Often crashes with large projects. File check-in takes too much time in TFS."
"We were testing handheld barcode scanners running WindowsCE with many menus of warehouse functions, and our biggest problem was the timing between input and responses."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"The solution is free."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"The price of SmartBear TestComplete could be less. The main challenge is when it comes to node-locked. They should use a subscription model, such as a monthly-based subscription or, a quarterly-based subscription. Their floating license is very expensive, and this high price should be reduced or provide, at a minimum, a subscription model."
"The licensing costs are in the range of $1,000 to $3,000."
"The option we chose was around $2,000 USD."
"The solution's pricing is too high."
"The price is less, compared to other products, such as QTP."
"The pricing is pretty reasonable."
"We have a TestComplete 12 license."
"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.