Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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 (28th)
 

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.
CN
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

"The solution is easy to use."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"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."
"We do not need to pay for the solution. It’s free."
"The solution is stable."
"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 latest versions of the solution are stable."
"This solution helps lower the overhead cost associated with buying multiple devices."
"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."
"It has increased the speed of our regression testing."
"I have found CrossBrowserTesting to be scalable."
"Selenium Grid allows testing multiple platforms to insure functionality for most users."
"I can run a page through the screenshot tool, then send a URL with the results to my team."
"The features that I find most useful and the ones that I use the most are local site testing, device and browser testing, and screenshots."
"The support team is top-notch. I have a great relationship with them. They are extremely honest and responsive."
 

Cons

"They should add an in-built framework."
"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"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."
"If it had more facility for configuration it would be a spectacular solution."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"I rarely use Appium nowadays because I'm now at the managerial level, but the last time I used it, whenever I selected and clicked on an element, Appium was very slow. I tried to debug it, but I still couldn't find the problem, so this is an area for improvement in the solution. Another area for improvement lies with the connector and server. For example, the effort to get into the local machine sometimes causes the emulator to become slow, which then leads to failure in testing, and this is the usual issue I've encountered from Appium. An additional feature I'd like added to Appium in its next release is being able to do automation in iOS without using XPath and the name of the element. In Xcode, you can use previous UI tests for detecting elements, but in Appium, you have to use Xpath and the element name instead of being able to directly put the X-UiPath, which is what you can do in Xcode. In iOS as well, sometimes the element doesn't have a name or a path. Sometimes, there's also no element."
"The tool needs to add a dependency manager."
"This solution would benefit from faster testing and support for more devices."
"Elements of 'real' mobile/tablet testing could be sped up."
"I have had quite a few issues trying to use a virtual machine to test our application on."
"The "Getting Started" documentation for Selenium testing could be improved."
"There should be more detailed training on CrossBrowserTesting."
"The screenshot tool defaults to a screen layout instead of a full page test. I find it a bit cumbersome that I can't have it run a full screenshot as my default."
"Sometimes, some of their instances fail, particularly in older versions of browsers."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"The solution is open source."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"The solution is open-source."
"A few intermediary pricing options for small QA teams would be nice, e.g., unlimited screenshots, "as you need it" parallel tests, etc."
"CrossBrowserTesting offered the best value for its price."
"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."
"SmartBear offers bundles of products that work together."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Regression Testing Tools solutions are best for your needs.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.