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Appium vs CrossBrowserTesting comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (7th), Regression Testing Tools (6th)
CrossBrowserTesting
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (27th)
 

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.
CN
Senior DevOps Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Knowledgeable support, scalable, and stable
We use CrossBrowserTesting for testing our web-based applications We had some issues with the onboarding process and the cloud conductivity could improve. I have used CrossBrowserTesting within the past 12 months. CrossBrowserTesting is stable. I have found CrossBrowserTesting to be scalable.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"It's an open-source solution with a very large community and available documentation."
"The most valuable feature of Appium is it supports iOS and AOS and is open-source."
"Appium provides a record-and-play option, and the commands are the same as those that Selenium uses. So a person who has some exposure to Selenium will be able to write a piece of code in Appium."
"The most valuable features of Appium are the in-built functionality, which we can use in our code. For example, move back, move front, navigate one page before, and navigate one page ahead. You can do this by using the in-built functions from Appium."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"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 runs completely flawlessly and seamlessly every day."
"I can run a page through the screenshot tool, then send a URL with the results to my team."
"The screen shot portal is essential for an easy way to run tests across hundreds of browsers and retrieve screenshots which then indicate success or failure."
"When developing new pages that have questionable functionality or coding, we will often use CBT to test it in a browser. CBT works with our testing environment and development site."
"CBT has made it easier to troubleshoot issues across devices when we do not have actual access to those specific devices. I even opt for CBT sometimes when we do have access to the device just because it is easier."
"The support team is top-notch. I have a great relationship with them. They are extremely honest and responsive."
"Record and Replay is the most used functionality for us, as we can record the test cases and play them on multiple combinations of platforms."
"The ability to replay sessions is valuable for tracking down issues."
"The ability to choose from many devices is the best feature."
 

Cons

"Support-wise, it could be better."
"They should add an in-built framework."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"The setup and installation were a problem for us at first."
"We previously worked with native applications, and there weren't any good mobile app testing tools. We started working with React Native, which works well with Appium, but it would be good to see better integration; the way elements are displayed can be messy. React Native is very popular nowadays, so it's essential to have that compatibility."
"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."
"The speed connection in mobile devices could be improved, because sometimes the load time is uncertain."
"We had some issues with the onboarding process and the cloud conductivity could improve."
"There should be more detailed training on CrossBrowserTesting."
"This solution would benefit from faster testing and support for more devices."
"A wider range of physical devices with more browser versions in the Selenium Grid would be great to insure users with out-of-date devices are able to interact with our sites."
"A problem that we are facing quite often is related to the network connection. Tests can fail if the remote CrossBrowserTesting's VM has connection problems. This happens mostly with browsers of Internet Explorer family which work on Windows OS."
"I have had quite a few issues trying to use a virtual machine to test our application on."
"Sometimes, some of their instances fail, particularly in older versions of browsers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"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 pricing of Appium is fine."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"CrossBrowserTesting offered the best value for its price."
"SmartBear offers bundles of products that work together."
"A few intermediary pricing options for small QA teams would be nice, e.g., unlimited screenshots, "as you need it" parallel tests, etc."
"It is worth the pricing as the product is supported on multiple platforms and browsers."
"The lowest price point is very reasonable. It is also useful if only one person in the company needs to check on the browser display."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
5%
Computer Software Company
17%
Performing Arts
9%
Government
8%
University
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 Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
 

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.
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Accenture, Sony, Los Angeles Times, ADP, Verizon, T-Mobile, Wistia
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. CrossBrowserTesting and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.