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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
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (12th)
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 August 2026, in the Regression Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Appium is 2.0%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear TestComplete is 9.2%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Regression Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SmartBear TestComplete9.2%
Appium2.0%
Other88.8%
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

"It can be used with different programming languages."
"Our clients have realized benefits by reducing their testing cycle from three days to three hours through Appium."
"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."
"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."
"Appium's wide support of programming languages is valuable."
"The automation part is extremely helpful in streamlining our processes."
"Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"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."
"After TestComplete, we have been able to reduce that time to less than one week."
"The integration with various tools is important."
"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."
"TestComplete is a great product."
"After NPAPI was unsupported by Chrome, our test runs were halted on Chrome for a previous version of TestComplete, and they started running again with version 11.11."
"The solution has saved a lot of human resources by running full regression tests prior to each release, and over the years many major bugs have been detected by the tool, saving us the big expense of fixing problems after a release."
"It is a strong automation tool for desktop, browser, and API testing."
 

Cons

"It should provide reliable and promising executions every time without any interruptions and avoiding any synchronization issues."
"Appium has problems with automated validations following iOS updates, causing us to have to validate manually. Its execution speed is also very slow."
"Configuration-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"Stability is an area that needs some improvement."
"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."
"Installation of this particular tool is tedious, and it gives you a good number of challenges at times."
"Sometimes, the Appium server won't connect with the mobile application because of some socket issues, so network connectivity between applications and the Appium server could be improved."
"I would like to see improved language support, with Python being my first choice."
"If that engine could better identify more XPaths automatically and make the process more flexible, that would be better."
"The code editor, though following eclipse-style, is still a work in progress and gives a very poorly formatted code once viewed via other editing tools like Notepad++."
"One notable drawback is the absence of native integration with Git."
"Occasionally, image comparison results in failures, possibly due to issues with resolution or font size on the server side, which can be challenging to identify."
"Technical Support: Not so helpful most of the times. They always fail to produce a work around."
"The integration tools could be better."
"The solution needs more training manuals or some form of online forum for learning. It needs more documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"The solution is open-source."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"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."
"It costs a few hundred per year, but I am not sure. It is not at all expensive as compared to other tools."
"The product is becoming more and more expensive."
"SmartBear TestComplete is an expensive tool."
"The solution's licensing cost has increased because it has moved to some new SLM-based licenses."
"It comes with a high cost."
"This is a pay-per-use service that is not expensive, and cost-efficient if you have a small team."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing 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.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.