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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 (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 latest versions of the solution are stable."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"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 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."
"Video recording of the script running in a cloud server."
"Each new session started with the live testing feature allows for a cleared browser and new experience to be able to not only see these attributes on the page clearly but also pass clean data."
"I have found CrossBrowserTesting to be scalable."
"At the moment, all our deploys depend on results of automation. If the tests are failing, then we know that something is wrong at the early stages of development."
"The extensive range of products available to simulate is something I have come to appreciate as it has resulted in an ability to broaden the scope of our tests."
"This solution helps lower the overhead cost associated with buying multiple devices."
"CrossBrowserTesting allows us to test our site with real-world devices in real-world scenarios and find what we're missing."
"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."
 

Cons

"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"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 user interface needs improvement because there are issues when setting up environment variables."
"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 setup and installation were a problem for us at first."
"If it had more facility for configuration it would be a spectacular solution."
"The challenging part with Appium is that installation can be a bit tricky. It can be challenging to set up in Android versus iOS environments."
"An application developed on the Unity platform, such as a gaming application, objects are moving in that case. Interacting with those elements is still lacking in Appium. Appium doesn't have the internal library to play with the Unity platform. That is a huge lack right now."
"The "Getting Started" documentation for Selenium testing could be improved."
"Sometimes, some of their instances fail, particularly in older versions of browsers."
"I have had quite a few issues trying to use a virtual machine to test our application on."
"There should be more detailed training on CrossBrowserTesting."
"Sometimes the testing is slow."
"We had some issues with the onboarding process and the cloud conductivity could improve."
"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."
"The speed connection in mobile devices could be improved, because sometimes the load time is uncertain."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"The solution is free."
"It is worth the pricing as the product is supported on multiple platforms and browsers."
"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."
"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
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
No data available
 

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.
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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: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.