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Appium vs SmartBear TestComplete comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

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
Ranking in Regression Testing Tools
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (9th)
SmartBear TestComplete
Ranking in Regression Testing Tools
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (8th), Test Automation Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Regression Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.1%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear TestComplete is 9.7%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Regression Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SmartBear TestComplete9.7%
Appium2.1%
Other88.2%
Regression Testing Tools
 

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.
Prakhar Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Test Lead at Emerson
Used for integration automation, user-based automation, and web automation
The solution's most valuable features are the drag-and-drop feature, keyword-driven approach, and reusability of the scripts. The solution has introduced a new feature that helps us identify objects we cannot normally identify. It gives you a fair idea of objects, resolving the object recognition issue. The solution can be used to perform different tests on different machines.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Within a single command, we can easily connect to the device."
"It runs completely flawlessly and seamlessly every day."
"The solution is easy to use."
"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."
"This is the best test automation tool for any mobile test automation engineer."
"For the particular use case we used Appium for, we felt that it served our purpose completely, and we haven't had any issues with the Python Client for Appium."
"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"Our clients have realized benefits by reducing their testing cycle from three days to three hours through Appium."
"Test items, project variables helps in managing automation suite and scheduling execution."
"We already have the UI smoke test and have integrated to our build system, which runs each day for multiple versions of the product and saves us a lot of time."
"For more than a year, I've been working on automation of functional testing and regression testing using TestComplete, and it is a great tool even though it is hard to learn and use."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ability to integrate with Azure DevOps for continuous integration and deployment."
"The ability to run a whole suite of tests automatically (which we did overnight)."
"Technical support is excellent, and if you reach out to them, they will get back to you within 24 hours."
"If a user is testing behavioral actions, then SmartBear is a very good product to go to."
"It's very helpful that, when you have a recording in one application, in one navigator, you can replay every step in different applications."
 

Cons

"The last time I used it, whenever I selected and clicked on an element, Appium was very slow."
"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."
"Stability is an area that needs some improvement."
"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."
"Appium doesn't recognize IDs placed by our developers on nested elements when we use React Native for iOS; it just sees the whole page and one element."
"Appium can improve when the case fails, there should be a feature where you can generate the report from Appium. Once you're on a test case, automatically the screenshot should be captured which would avoid manual intervention. These features would be beneficial to migrate to Appium."
"Installation of this particular tool is tedious, and it gives you a good number of challenges at times."
"The initial setup is straightforward if you have previous experience with the solution, but it can be complicated for a novice user."
"Sometimes the app crashes during test execution based on the amount of code that is running."
"The way objects are added and used when utilizing descriptive programming could be improved. It is a little unwieldy, compared to UFT."
"One issue that I found was that there wasn't a quick way or a button to move Visual Basic scripts to TestComplete."
"The initial setup of SmartBear TestComplete was complex."
"When it comes to customization controls the scalability of SmartBear TestComplete is limited."
"SmartBear products generally have a weak link when it comes to integration with other test management tools like Inflectra."
"During the distribution of our regression test cases, the control IDs are not always recognized correctly."
"This solution could be improved by making it easier to visualize where there is a failure without having to look at it in detail."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution is free."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"The solution is open-source."
"The solution is around $1500. Some are perpetual licenses, and some get a yearly report card."
"The option we chose was around $2,000 USD."
"The solution's licensing cost has increased because it has moved to some new SLM-based licenses."
"The license price for a physical machine is cheap, and for virtual machine, it is very expensive."
"Overall, for us, the cost of the TestComplete platform and the three extra modules is around $8,000."
"SmartBear TestComplete is an expensive tool."
"Our ROI is about $10,000 a year."
"The price of SmartBear TestComplete could be less. The main challenge is when it comes to node-locked. They should use a subscription model, such as a monthly-based subscription or, a quarterly-based subscription. Their floating license is very expensive, and this high price should be reduced or provide, at a minimum, a subscription model."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
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 Business23
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise32
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SmartBear TestComplete?
I am not involved in pricing or licensing; our management team handles these aspects.
What needs improvement with SmartBear TestComplete?
While using SmartBear TestComplete, we are fine with the current capabilities, however, it would be beneficial to improve some performance aspects, especially the image comparison feature. Occasion...
What is your primary use case for SmartBear TestComplete?
We are using SmartBear TestComplete ( /products/smartbear-testcomplete-reviews ) for automation over applications.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Cisco, J.P. Morgan, Boeing, McAfee, EMC, Intuit, and Thomson Reuters.
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. SmartBear TestComplete and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.