Appium vs Sauce Labs comparison

Appium and Sauce Labs are both solutions in the Regression Testing Tools category. Additionally, 93% of Appium users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Sauce Labs users who would recommend it.

Appium

Read 30 Appium reviews

1,485 Views
1,191 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Sauce Labs

Read 113 Sauce Labs reviews

3,846 Views
2,972 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Appium

Sauce Labs

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Appium and Sauce Labs based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Regression Testing Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Appium vs. Sauce Labs Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Appium vs. Sauce Labs

April 2025

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Helped 849,963 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Mobile Development Platforms (6th), Regression Testing Tools (6th)

Sauce Labs

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

113

Ranking in other categories

Functional Testing Tools (12th), Test Automation Tools (15th)

Featured Reviews

Abhishek-Tiwari

Senior Associate at PwC

Has cross-platform flexibility and a record-and-play option

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. Appium has some limitations in terms of writing code using simulators and online cloud devices. I faced challenges with native based scenarios, battery turn out percentage, battery charging percentage, and memory capacity. The other challenge I faced involved codes changing from device to device. For example, the piece of code that works in iOS version 10.1 won't work in iOS version 6.0. In upcoming releases, if they can reduce some more of the dependencies like SDK, UIAutomator, etc., it would be great. That is, I'd like to see a consolidated package or bundle release that is much more user-friendly.

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Joel Alonzo

Product Manager - Data & APIs at a marketing services firm with 201-500 employees

Metrics about testing across the company are easily accessible, and it's easy to get teams up and running

Multi-domain SSO is a big concern for us right now, especially as we've been merged into a larger company. I suddenly have teams coming from 20 different domains, and because the main master Sauce Labs account is locked down to one SSO domain, there are teams that can't run a test right now. I've heard they're working on a solution and they've been very communicative with us about it. A solution to that would help us a lot. The other issue is that when you're behind a corporate proxy and inside a corporate network, it's a nightmare in general. And the problem that we've come up against over and over again is that a lot of our network staff don't want to open up giant CIDR blocks to internal traffic. Opening it up to one endpoint which is Sauce Labs, through a little API is perfectly fine. That's one IP address and it's no big deal. But for their virtual machines they have one jump box and that jump box contains an entire CIDR block that changes each time the tunnel starts up. In other words, if every call went into one IP and that got bounced back to a load balancer or net gateway, that would help a lot too. When I go to the network team and say, "Hey, we're using a product, a piece of software, and I need an entire CIDR block opened," the first and almost eternal response to that will be "absolutely not." Getting things set up and running is always going to be a bit of a struggle within any corporate environment. Most of that is not Sauce Labs' fault, but the things I just mentioned are things they could do to help deal with that struggle.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."

"Appium has easy interaction with mobile."

"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."

"The solution helps with test automation. We focus mostly on Java."

"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."

"The automation part is extremely helpful in streamlining our processes."

"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."

"It has great documentation and excellent community support."

More Appium pros

"The Failure Analysis feature is really important for us, one of the most important aspects. What is the root cause? Is it because we have a defect or is it that we have a test case that we need to fix or modify? The Failure Analysis is one of the main functionalities that I am exploring all the time in Sauce Labs... The Failure Analysis helps us to discover which test cases we need to work on."

"I find that the multitude of browser and OS versions are very helpful for broadening testing scope."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to run concurrent automated tests up to a specified value, depending on what we are currently paying for."

"I have found the live test section with Sauce Labs to be extremely valuable. When you can't quite figure out why a test is failing, you can go to the live test results section within their tool and launch your test (specifying a given OS/browser, or device) manually and step through the test to see the issue more clearly, usually opening up the developer's tool console and watching the network calls and console (within Chrome) to usually find the underlying issue."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to easily test multiple browsers and versions, as well as off-loading our local environments using the SauceCloud."

"It runs on the cloud, so you don't have physical setups to run all of this."

"Since this is an all-in-one testing site, we are able to take advantage of the browser OS combinations, mobile emulators and simulators, and real mobile devices. This is important to us since we have a variety of users, browsers, OS, etc."

"The custom capabilities that can be provided to Sauce Labs VMs during automated testing sessions are a valuable option for experimental or niche testing."

More Sauce Labs pros

Cons

"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."

"The setup and installation were a problem for us at first."

"Configuration-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement."

"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 deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require improvement."

"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."

"It breaks down."

"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."

More Appium cons

"Better and programmatic controls on request/response recordings and sharing with developers."

"Sauce Labs needs to be improved in the different platforms for farm testing, like iOS and Android farm testing and farm testing web browsers."

"I can't remove team members that have left the organization. I can only set them as inactive. It would be really nice to clean up my data and delete them from the team management."

"Every time that we run scenarios where we need to discover the geolocation of our customers, by default it shows as Palo Alto, California. That's a problem for us and we need a workaround for those cases... It would be helpful if we could enter a latitude and longitude into Sauce Labs configuration and say, "When you run a virtual Chrome device or an iPhone, make this your default location. Then, provide me that device so I can run my scenarios," because we have stores in different regions across the United States."

"It should provide more examples of script code."

"An image comparison would be a nice feature to include in the Sauce Labs product."

"I would like to see improved network connectivity and it should allow playback for native apps."

"Speeds up the time it takes to run end-to-end user interface (UI) tests inside their virtual machines (VMs)."

More Sauce Labs cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's open source, so it's completely free."

"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."

"Appium is open source; we can use it for free."

"Appium is free and open-source."

"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."

"The solution is free."

"The pricing of Appium is fine."

More Appium pricing and cost advice

"It could be less like pay-per-use with a lower rate."

"The pricing is reasonable due to the amount of diversity that they provide. However, I feel they might be more flexible to bargain based on their relationship with our organization."

"It is an expensive tool."

"The number of concurrent VMs that Sauce Labs provides depends on your purchase license level."

"They could improve on the pricing because it seems pretty expensive. I'm sure it's justified, but it's expensive."

"When you reach the Enterprise licensing tier, base level being with 10 concurrent test sessions, pricing is essentially per-unit-of-concurrency thereafter with a relatively linear increase and not much benefit for "bulk"."

"Now that we have an enterprise license, we no longer have to worry about minutes each month!"

"Try the free trial and work with a Sauce Labs representative to see what package works best for your application(s)."

More Sauce Labs pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Appium?

Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Sauce Labs?

It has significantly enhanced our testing accuracy by approximately 50%.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sauce Labs?

Sauce Labs can include new technologies like generative AI, which can reduce the human effort in writing test cases. For example, in my current project, we reduced the time it took to complete user...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Sauce Labs?

I work as an automation engineer using Selenium WebDriver with Java, and API automation using Rest Assured with Java. I have also worked with Docker integration on AWS. Additionally, I have experie...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Appium

April 2025

Download Appium product report

Buyer's Guide

Sauce Labs

April 2025

Download Sauce Labs product report

Overview

Appium is an open-source mobile application development tool that is designed to give users complete control of their application development process. It enables them to optimize the development process when the need calls for it, and create the applications that they want in the most efficient manner they can.

Appium Benefits

Some of the benefits that come from using Appium include:

Ease of deployment. Appium is fairly simple for users to set up for the first time. Developers can download Appium and launch it with only a couple of clicks.

Easily track the results of application tests. Appium automatically creates reports when developers run application tests. These reports can give users insights into every aspect of the tests that they just ran. They can include detailed test results, screenshots of the test as it took place, and videos showing the test while it was in progress. Developers can also recall these reports with ease so that the information that was gathered is always at their disposal.

Gain deep insights into your application. Users can easily gain insight into the way that their application is running and how it might be improved. The reports that the system produces can provide developers with all of the data and insight that they need to improve their applications and make informed decisions.

Appium Features

When users choose to employ Appium’s mobile development solution, they gain access to many different capabilities. These features include:

Remote testing capability. Teams that are spread across the globe can collaborate and run tests from wherever they happen to be at the time. They can connect to Appium’s cloud testing feature and always have access to the latest iteration of the project they are working on.

Customizable test reporting capability. Appium enables users to customize the way that information from their tests is reported. They can create the kinds of reports that best reflect their objectives and needs. When specific information is needed, the reports can be formatted to show that particular aspect when the solution generates it.

Parallel testing capabilities. Developers who use Appium can run multiple application tests at the same time. This enables them to save time and resources while still accounting for every scenario that their applications might experience. Users can run all of the tests necessary to ensure that their applications are successful while spending the minimum amount of time doing so.

Reviews from Real Users

Appium is a solution that has a great deal to offer its users. It is a very complete mobile development solution that gives users the capabilities that they need to design their mobile applications with the greatest level of ease possible. Users can scale their application scripts to meet their needs. Additionally, developers can automate testing protocols, which reduces the amount of time and other resources that need to be devoted to the testing process. These two features make Appium a leader in the field of mobile application development.

Jayanta K., automation and nft manager at a computer software company, writes, “The interface for mobile automation is helpful for scripting and execution. It's scalable and there are many testers who would like to automate. In terms of scripting, scalability is very good.”

The head of solutions delivery (systems) at a wellness & fitness company writes, “Obviously, because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts.”

Appium

Sauce Labs is a functional testing tool that ensures your apps and websites work flawlessly on every browser, OS, and device. The solution allows you to automate functional testing on multiple operating systems and browsers, emulating the way that a user would use the website. With Sauce Labs, you can also run tests on various operating system and browser combinations in parallel, reducing the amount of time to get results. The Sauce Labs solution provides enterprise-grade security, scalability, and reliability.

Sauce Labs Features

Sauce Labs has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Automated cross-browser testing
Mobile testing
Secure tunneling protocol
Usage reporting
Enterprise security
Provisioning
Centralized user account management
Access controls
Support for Selenium, Appium, and JUnit Testing

Sauce Labs Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Sauce Labs. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Speed up development time: The solution makes it possible for you to test web and mobile apps in parallel and accelerate your testing time by up to 10x or more. Using Sauce Labs, you can increase developer productivity because your teams will be able to spend less time with test maintenance and debug faster.

No worrying about infrastructure: With Sauce Labs, you don’t have to buy or maintain more servers or mobile devices. You also don’t need to worry about updating browsers or VM licenses. Sauce Labs allows you to easily scale your tests with parallelization to speed up test cycles and boost capacity on their reliable cloud.

Run tests securely: The solution enables you to securely run your scripts and access your data and files from behind your firewall. Sauce Labs generates single-use VMs for every test and destroys them immediately afterwards so your data always remains secure.

Easy integration for your CI systems: Sauce Labs automated testing platform integrates with Jenkins, Bamboo, Microsoft VSTS, and others so you can test as fast as you develop. In addition, you can share results instantly by using the solution’s simple plugins.

Reviews from Real Users

Sauce Labs is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. It has valuable features that include error logging, helpful dashboards, and its browser.

Joel A., Product Manager - Data & APIs at a marketing services firm, says, "The error logging is very robust. If we run a test through Sauce Labs and there's some sort of issue, a log will appear on the screen. Log messages are usually heinous and horrible... Sauce Labs is incredibly good at saying things like, 'Hey, here is the exact issue. Fix this and you can run the test.' That helps in getting things up and running and executing the way they should."

Savio D., Sr. IT Architect at a healthcare company, mentions, "Sauce Labs' dashboards contain multiple useful metrics in one place. Everything is represented to us visually on the dashboard, which helps us understand where to focus our attention, what the issues are, and what we need to resolve."

PeerSpot reviewer, Rob L., Director of Quality Assurance - Shared Service at a financial services firm, writes, “The most valuable feature for us is the browser. The most critical thing is that this software aligns with our Agile and DevOps way of doing things. It integrates with kickoff scripts through DevOps.”

Sauce Labs

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote

Salesforce.com, Mozilla, Zendesk, Puppet Labs, Twitter, Bank of America, Eventbrite, Bleacher Report, Okta, Intuit, Travelocity, Sharecare, CapitalOne.

Buyer's Guide

Appium vs. Sauce Labs

April 2025

Free Report: Appium vs. Sauce Labs

Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. Sauce Labs and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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