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Appium vs ServiceNow 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)
ServiceNow
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
224
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (1st), IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Appium and ServiceNow aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Appium is designed for Mobile Development Platforms and holds a mindshare of 3.2%, down 5.5% compared to last year.
ServiceNow, on the other hand, focuses on IT Service Management (ITSM), holds 19.6% mindshare, down 25.7% since last year.
Mobile Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Appium3.2%
OutSystems14.7%
Mendix13.6%
Other68.5%
Mobile Development Platforms
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow19.6%
JIRA Service Management8.3%
BMC Helix ITSM7.5%
Other64.6%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

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.
Anil  Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Have reduced L1 dependency and improved incident resolution through AI-powered automation
To make ServiceNow better, they should reduce their pricing, especially because there's a lot of competition. Many customers have moved to ManageEngine because they cannot afford the license cost. The price should be reduced by at least 40%. The setup of ServiceNow is sometimes complex when new updates or versions are released. When they introduce something new, they should provide training to understand the new features and their functionality. We sometimes get stuck and have to call them to learn about the changes in the latest version. They should communicate the changes made from older versions to new versions, which features are not available, which features have changed, and how to implement them. If the communication part was handled properly, it would benefit us.

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."
"We do not need to pay for the solution. It’s free."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"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 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."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Appium is it supports iOS and AOS and is open-source."
"ServiceNow has also enabled our Management Consulting business to provide Digital Transformation services for our clients the world over, as we use the platform as an accelerator for doing IT Target Operating Model transformations."
"It is user-friendly and simple to use."
"I like the ease of use."
"I like the incident module, which is useful for tracking your incidents and other things. It is a reliable solution."
"I prefer ServiceNow to the competition because of its ease of use, installation and configuration."
"The return on investment is good when implementing for ourselves and for other clients."
"What I like the most is the functionality, it's features are rich, and there is a high degree of compliance with IT standards."
"For change management, I find the CAB workbench very useful. I haven't seen any other solution that has a CAB workbench or advanced automated solutions for a change advisory board. ServiceNow also has the Workflow Engine which works very well and is very intuitive."
 

Cons

"It breaks down."
"If it had more facility for configuration it would be a spectacular solution."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"Image recognition could be improved. We have some images in our mobile applications. It should be able to run from the cloud, so we can automate the catcher."
"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 initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually."
"The setup was time-consuming and required a lot of internal resources."
"The solution is lacking in the mobile application area that could be improved."
"Creating service catalog forms could be made easier."
"The installation and deployment of ServiceNow can be a bit challenging. One major issue I've encountered is that ServiceNow doesn't provide the same mobile responsiveness or features that we used to enjoy with other tools. For example, with Splunk, our response times were about five minutes, and we could manage alerts and incidents directly from our mobile devices."
"While ServiceNow has many options, the number of options can sometimes be confusing regarding where to click or how things work, as it is based on configuration provided by the administrator."
"There is a need to learn scripting because as in the case of all the ITSM tools, scripting is needed for customization. If you're not very comfortable with scripting, then you may feel that you cannot do everything in ServiceNow without learning scripting."
"Performance could be improved."
"I do not like the user interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"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."
"The solution is open-source."
"ServiceNow is an expensive solution."
"ServiceNow is a leader and its pricing is quite good, quite competitive... Sometimes some plugins are not priced reasonably but, generally, the platform itself, its modules, are priced reasonably."
"The cost is quite high."
"There is an annual subscription to use this solution."
"For large-scale companies, the cost of ServiceNow is not expensive, but for small and mid-scale companies, it is higher."
"ServiceNow pricing is an art, not a science. The deal depends on how commercially savvy you are, which does make it something that is quite difficult to get right. It is most definitely an opportunity area for ServiceNow to improve and have more visibility around pricing of the different products within the platform."
"ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten. The pricing for ServiceNow is based on a SaaS platform with annual contracts. However, it may not offer much flexibility for adjusting usage in the short term."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

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 Business54
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise164
 

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.
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...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow    
Find out what your peers are saying about OutSystems, Mendix, Salesforce and others in Mobile Development Platforms. Updated: October 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.