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Appium vs Xamarin Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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 Mobile Development Platforms
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (6th)
Xamarin Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.8%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.8%
Appium2.6%
Other90.6%
Mobile Development Platforms
 

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.
Anubrata Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at Landmark Group
Unified codebase has reduced mobile development effort but now faces SDK and support limits
You can still develop public-facing apps with Xamarin Platform, but there are restrictions on Xamarin Platform App Store and Google Play that prevent you from publishing your apps because they require you to use their latest SDKs and their latest libraries. Xamarin Platform, having been discontinued a couple of years ago, is no longer compatible with the latest libraries and SDKs offered by Google and Apple. So you have to use obsolete libraries and obsolete packages, which means that when you try to publish them, your Google Play or Apple App Store will prevent you from doing that because you have not used the latest libraries. Right now, Xamarin Platform has been discontinued. Xamarin Platform had its flaws, and there were known issues. Xamarin Platform has a big community of developers, so even though there are known issues and flaws, there are known workarounds. In terms of stability, I would rank it at 7.5, but I believe 7 would be a more accurate rating, so 7 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Within a single command, we can easily connect to the device."
"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."
"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."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"The most valuable feature of Appium is it supports iOS and AOS and is open-source."
"Our clients have realized benefits by reducing their testing cycle from three days to three hours through Appium."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"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."
"Xamarin makes it easy to create white label applications for all platforms."
"It brings about good code sharing strategies, which bring down cost and maintenance efforts."
"It helped to automate iOS and Android apps for our client within short time which helped them for regression testing on a daily basis so manual effort reduced."
"The best part while using the Xamarin Platform is a cross-platform application. We could execute iOS and Android while writing a single line of code."
"It will save time, cost, and money."
"Being able to use the .NET framework and platform have me creating applications better than anyone who develops on Windows."
"If you are already heavily invested in the .NET platform and C# development, Xamarin is the quickest way to make native iOS apps."
"It is a true native solution, and we can use the cross-platform framework."
 

Cons

"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 product was a bit difficult to install. It wasn’t easy. We had issues."
"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."
"The deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require improvement."
"I'm facing a lot of issues with my new juniors when they set up Appium for iOS."
"The last time I used it, whenever I selected and clicked on an element, Appium was very slow."
"They should add an in-built framework."
"Installation of this particular tool is tedious, and it gives you a good number of challenges at times."
"The Xamarin.Forms could improve."
"Xamarin Platform's performance base could be improved."
"It is common to find a problem that you would need to develop from the start since there are no third-party components to reuse."
"The solution struggles a little bit with binding libraries."
"We'd like to have some chat support functionality."
"It needs offline sync capabilities to store data on devices persistently."
"We have noticed that there have been stability-based performance issues with this product, which need to be improved."
"For beginners, the entire setup can be overwhelming because it involves setting up development environments for iOS, Android, and Windows at the same time if you want to target all three."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The solution is open source."
"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 price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"The product is inexpensive."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, so it is free to use."
"In most cases, it is sufficient to have free/community license. But if you plan to seriously develop production-level, highly polished apps, you need to use Xamarin.Profiler and the professional or enterprise license."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
 

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 Business18
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
 

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 Xamarin Platform?
It is free to use Xamarin Platform as we utilize the community edition. Xamarin Platform was acquired by Microsoft and then made free, which happened way back in 2015, I believe, or 2014. After it ...
What needs improvement with Xamarin Platform?
You can still develop public-facing apps with Xamarin Platform, but there are restrictions on Xamarin Platform App Store and Google Play that prevent you from publishing your apps because they requ...
What is your primary use case for Xamarin Platform?
I have been doing mobile development using Xamarin Platform for which I have already shared my feedback earlier, and I am focused on utilizing Xamarin Platform for my projects.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Cinemark, MixRadio, Sqor Sports, Storyo, JetBlue, The World Bank, Cr_dito Agrcola, Applied Research Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. Xamarin Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.