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OutSystems vs Xamarin Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 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

OutSystems
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (4th), Low-Code Development Platforms (2nd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (6th)
Xamarin Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of OutSystems is 12.0%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.1%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OutSystems12.0%
Xamarin Platform6.1%
Other81.9%
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

MA
Software Developer Advisor at NTT DATA Services
OutSystems facilitates rapid application development and effective project management
What I find valuable about OutSystems is that it has a very good learning curve for developers. Within two weeks, we can gain knowledge in OutSystems, and it is very easy to learn. With my background being .NET, OutSystems is straightforward to learn, which is beneficial. Developing applications in OutSystems is good, and the flexibility allowed by OutSystems for application development is excellent compared to my experiences with other low-code technologies, where I've faced some challenges. The clean separation of concerns in the architecture provided by OutSystems is a key benefit compared to other platforms. OutSystems integrates with our existing tech infrastructure and provides flexible integration. If we want to integrate with third-party services, OutSystems has SOAP and RESTful services that allow us to consume external services, integrate with external databases such as SQL or Oracle, and includes integration studio for writing custom .NET code. After developing a .NET component, we can reference it in service studio, creating a reference file that makes integration easy. OutSystems officially supports various integrations and also includes an API discovery tool for consuming and exposing services, providing a lot of information about incoming URLs, similar to how we use Postman.
Prince Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at AAPC
Facilitates UI development with XAML, enabling shared UI code across platforms and reducing platform-specific work
I like its simplicity. As someone who didn't start my career as a dedicated developer, I was used to building websites or Windows applications. Transitioning to mobile app development meant learning new languages like Swift or Java. With C# and Xamarin, though, I could leverage my existing skillset. Xamarin, and specifically Xamarin.Forms, let me write my code once and deploy it natively to both Android and iOS. Xamarin.Forms are very useful. Essentially, it's a framework that allows me to create the UI mostly in XAML. This XAML code is then translated into the native UI elements for each respective platform. The advantage is that roughly 90% of my UI code can be shared. This significantly reduces the amount of platform-specific UI work compared to having to write separate UIs for each platform. For the most part, Xamarin's integration with Visual Studio improved the workflow, whether I'm on Windows or Mac. Since I'm familiar with Visual Studio, it provides a comfortable development environment. Additionally, features like Hot Reload and the integration of tools like Copilot help streamline the development process. Overall, it offers a positive development experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the valuable features of OutSystems is the very small lead time for the delivery of projects."
"The most valuable features of OutSystems are the user interface, the flexibility to quickly integrate with almost anything in the system, and the ability to connect with databases."
"Once built, web/mobile components can be reused in all new developments. In addition, the OutSystems Forge is very useful. We can exchange components and even already-built applications, reducing costs to build specific solutions."
"OutSystems' low-cost approach has positively impacted our productivity, because we were able to develop faster with OutSystems, enabling us to implement many changes during our sprint."
"Their out-of-the-box UI is quite good."
"You can go huge - so it is definitely a scalable solution."
"The tool makes the development process easier."
"The most valuable feature of OutSystems is the drag and drop and toolchains in the small AI developing environment. Additionally, the documentation is helpful."
"The most important impact is the reduction in product lifecycle costs."
"Xamarin makes it easy to create white label applications for all platforms."
"It allows us to reuse our knowledge of C# and .NET Framework."
"Plugins like MvvmCross make a developer’s life easy."
"It brings about good code sharing strategies, which bring down cost and maintenance efforts."
"I think the best part about Xamarin is that you can create apps for both platforms using one source code. That's the most powerful feature. When you develop something for Android, it also builds for iVerse as well. The cross-platform aspect of Xamarin is unique. The ability to develop both apps with a single code base is something very unique."
"Xamarin Platform's best features are its single codebase, the support from Microsoft, and the free libraries."
"We were able to optimize the service organization for one of our clients."
 

Cons

"The prices should be lower. It is a little bit too high for a small market."
"In my opinion, the support and the pricing could be better."
"The initial setup of OutSystems is not easy. It is a very heavy application that requires a lot of hardware and software resources."
"Currently, in mobile applications, we don't have push notifications."
"The tutorials for the solution should be updated."
"OutSystems could improve by being more like GitHub. It would be more helpful for us for division management and version control for our application."
"The asynchronous processing and multithreading tasks for which the current resources of the platform are very generic and not built for the end-user. Any asynchronous jobs have to be constructed with an end-user dashboard to allow inspection of the status of the activities."
"The product could be improved if there was a shortcut, or predefined, predictable templates provided."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"For those who use only XAML to design the UI, it would be better if there was a better XAML previewer or designer."
"The problem that I faced was that the communication, the roles, and the responsibilities, weren't defined between Microsoft and Xamarin."
"The debugging functionality could be improved in Xamarin Platform because sometimes it takes very long to move through the stages of setting up the application build to the final deployment on a mobile app that resides in a physical device."
"The worst build issue concerns are the caching process MSBuild uses to reduce the build time."
"Xamarin Platform lacks in app size."
"The major I see with Xamarin right now is that there is no visual editor"
"There is room for increasing the scale a little bit further with the designer in the Visual Studio, more specifically, Xamarin.Android Designer in Visual Studio."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a free trial to use this solution and other options available, such as enterprise. There are different subscription plans."
"As for licensing costs, I'm not directly involved in that aspect."
"OutSystems is a very expensive solution, and it has to be cheaper."
"The solution is expensive. The platform is not suitable for all of my clients. I work with labor unions and other smaller organizations that would not be able to afford the platform's current pricing model. It would be beneficial if there were a scaled-down version or a tiered pricing option that would allow me to build an app or a web app that is more cost-effective for my clients. Currently, the platform's pricing is too high for many of my clients, who would not be able to afford something in the $50,000 to $100,000 range."
"The tool’s licensing is based on the user’s usage."
"There are no additional costs with the standard license."
"I would rate it five to six out of ten."
"For one developer to use, the cost is around $5,000."
"I think the solution is free."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"This is a free product, so there is zero investment on licenses and IDE."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, but there are fees for deployment, the API Store and Play Store, and using third-party libraries."
"Xamarin is available under several licensing arrangements. Each developer needs one license at least. All features, especially the Profiler, unlock only with the highest tier."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
21%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
What industries do you think OutSystems is most useful for?
I cannot really name an industry in which OutSystems cannot be beneficial. Who does not want to make top-notch applications that work in no time? And OutsyStems does exactly that. The low-code plat...
How did you decide which OutSystems edition was the best one for you?
We started using OutSystems fairly recently, so we are still on the free version of it. My company is still testing how we like the platform, but so far, we have been satisfied with it and will li...
What do you like most about Xamarin Platform?
Xamarin.Forms are very useful. Essentially, it's a framework that allows me to create the UI mostly in XAML. This XAML code is then translated into the native UI elements for each respective platform.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Xamarin Platform?
Xamarin Platform is free, and we use an Azure subscription at a relatively low cost for our builds. It offers a good value for money, although it requires time to make it work effectively.
What needs improvement with Xamarin Platform?
The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Microsoft and Google. The lack of robust documentation and support for third-party bin...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Randstad, Warner Brothers, HP, Intel, ING, Banco Popular, Thrivent Financial, Bacardi, Kent State University, Bacardi, FICO, ING, Vodafone, AbbVie, Estafeta, Siemens, Vopak
Cinemark, MixRadio, Sqor Sports, Storyo, JetBlue, The World Bank, Cr_dito Agrcola, Applied Research Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about OutSystems vs. Xamarin Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.