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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 March 2026, in the Regression Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.4%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear TestComplete is 11.0%, up from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Regression Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SmartBear TestComplete11.0%
Appium2.4%
Other86.6%
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

"For our company, Appium's similarity with Selenium is important as we use Selenium."
"It has great documentation and excellent community support."
"It runs completely flawlessly and seamlessly every day."
"Within a single command, we can easily connect to the device."
"When it comes to mobile automation, I recommend this solution because of its performance, and scalability over the competition."
"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."
"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"The automation part is extremely helpful in streamlining our processes."
"TestComplete fits almost perfectly with a large amount of stacks, such as Delphi, C#, Java and web applications."
"My advice to others is: If you're looking for speed, configuration consistency, and accuracy of tests with fantastic results, go get TestComplete."
"To me, the Object Browser has proven to be the most valuable feature of this product."
"TestComplete is a great product."
"You can record your actions and play them back later."
"It is very easy to maintain tests with this tool. It covers all necessary items in the test plan. The most painful item in testing is maintenance. When changes occur, the tests should be maintained."
"TestComplete fits almost almost perfectly with a large amount of stacks, such as Delphi, C#, Java and web applications, making it an amazing feature for companies that want to automate UI tests on each application built in-house."
"Mainly, when we did an evaluation and comparison, TestComplete had two big advantages - Good technology support Relatively low price in comparison to other vendor tools"
 

Cons

"Installation of this particular tool is tedious, and it gives you a good number of challenges at times."
"Stability is an area that needs some improvement."
"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."
"We previously worked with native applications, and there weren't any good mobile app testing tools. We started working with React Native, which works well with Appium, but it would be good to see better integration; the way elements are displayed can be messy. React Native is very popular nowadays, so it's essential to have that compatibility."
"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."
"Configuring the project to be used in Appium is a little bit tedious."
"Product is not stable enough and it crashes often."
"The initial setup of SmartBear TestComplete was complex."
"Increased performance with less memory and cpu usage."
"A major part of the product that needs improvement is the licenser."
"Technical Support: Not so helpful most of the times. They always fail to produce a work around."
"Increased performance with less memory and CPU usage."
"Stability issues occurred only when connecting to the SourceSafe. Sometimes, after getting the latest version, the tool hangs and it should be reopened in order to recover."
"The solution’s customer support should be improved."
 

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."
"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The solution is open source."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"The solution is 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."
"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."
"SmartBear TestComplete is an expensive tool."
"It costs a few hundred per year, but I am not sure. It is not at all expensive as compared to other tools."
"The licensing costs are in the range of $1,000 to $3,000."
"This is a pay-per-use service that is not expensive, and cost-efficient if you have a small team."
"My advice so far, is that while it’s not quite as powerful and easy to use as UFT, its price tag more than makes up for it."
"The solution is around $1500. Some are perpetual licenses, and some get a yearly report card."
"It is approximately $6,000 a year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
5%
 

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 do you like most about SmartBear TestComplete?
TestComplete has strong reporting capabilities. The reports they generate are really good.
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...
 

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: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.