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Magic xpa Application Platform vs Xamarin Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 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

Magic xpa Application Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (11th), Application Infrastructure (14th)
Xamarin Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Magic xpa Application Platform is 3.9%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.8%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Xamarin Platform6.8%
Magic xpa Application Platform3.9%
Other89.3%
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Mylsamy T. - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate - IT at Himalaya Wellness Company
Enables us to develop more than 90 applications in-house, which are used across our organization
It's a bit difficult to work with purely web-based applications to get the data and display it. There have been a few times when the connection was disconnected between the server and your browser. The connectivity on browser-built applications needs to be improved. The mobile application development could be easier. They could include different external applications, like finger sensors. I'm not sure whether it's in version 3.8 or not.
Anubrata Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at Landmark Group
Unified codebase has reduced mobile development effort but now faces SDK and support limits
You can still develop public-facing apps with Xamarin Platform, but there are restrictions on Xamarin Platform App Store and Google Play that prevent you from publishing your apps because they require you to use their latest SDKs and their latest libraries. Xamarin Platform, having been discontinued a couple of years ago, is no longer compatible with the latest libraries and SDKs offered by Google and Apple. So you have to use obsolete libraries and obsolete packages, which means that when you try to publish them, your Google Play or Apple App Store will prevent you from doing that because you have not used the latest libraries. Right now, Xamarin Platform has been discontinued. Xamarin Platform had its flaws, and there were known issues. Xamarin Platform has a big community of developers, so even though there are known issues and flaws, there are known workarounds. In terms of stability, I would rank it at 7.5, but I believe 7 would be a more accurate rating, so 7 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Speed of development and database connectivity (MS SQL, Oracle, DB2, Btrieve/Pervasive PSQL, ODBC, MySql, and SQLite)."
"Magic’s Database Gateway allows the logic of the program to be isolated from the underlying database. This provides the flexibility not only to move existing programs to different database environments without the need to change the logic in the program but also allows the programmer access to different databases without the need to know how to "talk" to them."
"Magic is rapid, it's a tool which we use to develop, change and maintain our programs, and xpa has a lot more features onboard and it gives us the opportunity to do such things so that we can easily adapt and maintain our programs, giving us certain benefits to stay with our customers and the market."
"Without the need to compile code, the time spent in the development cycle is greatly reduced, allowing the programmer to test modifications to a program immediately after they have been saved."
"xpa gives us a fast development speed."
"In spite of the solution's high cost, we see a very large return on our investment."
"Typically an experienced Magic developer can do the work of two to three experienced C#/.NET developers. Customers are amazed at how quickly most new features can be added and bug fixes implemented. I have worked for four employers - including myself - using Magic, and in most instances, bug fixes are addressed and deployed in under six hours."
"The solution makes the managing and adapting of the software very easy."
"Plugins like MvvmCross make a developer’s life easy."
"I think the best part about Xamarin is that you can create apps for both platforms using one source code. That's the most powerful feature. When you develop something for Android, it also builds for iVerse as well. The cross-platform aspect of Xamarin is unique. The ability to develop both apps with a single code base is something very unique."
"You can just write one XM channel core and it'll be used for both iOS and Android."
"The native features and Xamarin Essentials package are highly valuable to us."
"The combination of forms for cross-platform UI and C-Sharp for the programming language are my two favorite features."
"However, the overall experience is really positive."
"It is a true native solution, and we can use the cross-platform framework."
"If you are already heavily invested in the .NET platform and C# development, Xamarin is the quickest way to make native iOS apps."
 

Cons

"They want to be one toolbox for everything, but primarily, we are using xpa to develop desktop applications, and in that area they're lacking functionalities, flexibility, and modern stuff."
"There is room for improvement in Magic's marketing and licensing. I would like to see more integration of web functionality."
"The user interface could be improved to be more friendly for developers."
"The company has now released version 4 for web development, but this new release is still pretty hard to use for mobile and web development because it was not improved as much as we expected in the areas of user-friendliness or development-friendliness."
"Support is very bad. The main focus is placed on their own customers, big banks and big insurance companies, so those, like us, who are independent software vendors, are ignored."
"The ability to display page up, page down, top and bottom buttons along the scroll bar would make my mouse-reliant customers happy."
"When you have several tasks, you open a screen in a task in developing mode, and you don't see the parent screens. Debugging lacks the effects to solve problems. You have to do it first in a kind of studio. Then you have to be sure that you can do it in Magic because there is almost nothing to debug it. It's practically impossible to debug. You have to be sure before you put your snippets."
"I would like to see a spell checker included with optional language support. Currently, this has to be purchased from a third-party."
"All Xamarin library issues which need to be taken care of should be top priority."
"The recent move to .NET MAUI is a big change that's affecting a lot of the good features."
"They need to improve performance, especially for the Android platform. Also, some controls are missing in the Xamarin framework when compared to native controls; for example, the checkbox control."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"For those who use only XAML to design the UI, it would be better if there was a better XAML previewer or designer."
"Xamarin Platform can improve if there was a virtual test environment so we did not have to have a Mac system for the iOS testing. At this time You must have a Mac to deploy or generate IBA profiles."
"For beginners, the entire setup can be overwhelming because it involves setting up development environments for iOS, Android, and Windows at the same time if you want to target all three."
"They need to take a step towards independence from the UI platform. It takes a lot of time to adapt the native controls."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Magic is not the cheapest IDE out there. If you are considering Magic xpa, you should do a cost-benefit analysis to feel comfortable with your decision. The Magic sales staff is very helpful in providing pricing."
"There are different licenses, we have the application and the online application. There are two different licenses for two different program sites for the Magic xpa Application Platform."
"My clients have to purchase additional licenses in order to use what I built. It's not a fair approach."
"The cost for developers is high because you have to pay for licenses as well as runtime."
"The licensing cost varies because nowadays Magic has tailor-made offerings for clients. I think the solution is worth the money."
"It's not cheap. The licenses are not cheap. Not at all. They cost much money. There are other tools with free licenses but Magic asks for a lot of money."
"The licensing is too costly."
"The main problem with the Magic xpa Application Platform is pricing. You have to pay a lot of money for development, and you also have to pay a lot for the deployments and runtime, while in most competitors, you have to pay a lot for one of the two and not both."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"The price of the Xamarin Platform is not expensive. However, the price of the solution depends on the application that is made. For example, if you have small applications, it's different from large or enterprise applications."
"I think the solution is free."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
"In most cases, it is sufficient to have free/community license. But if you plan to seriously develop production-level, highly polished apps, you need to use Xamarin.Profiler and the professional or enterprise license."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, but there are fees for deployment, the API Store and Play Store, and using third-party libraries."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
11%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Xamarin Platform?
It is free to use Xamarin Platform as we utilize the community edition. Xamarin Platform was acquired by Microsoft and then made free, which happened way back in 2015, I believe, or 2014. After it ...
What needs improvement with Xamarin Platform?
You can still develop public-facing apps with Xamarin Platform, but there are restrictions on Xamarin Platform App Store and Google Play that prevent you from publishing your apps because they requ...
What is your primary use case for Xamarin Platform?
I have been doing mobile development using Xamarin Platform for which I have already shared my feedback earlier, and I am focused on utilizing Xamarin Platform for my projects.
 

Also Known As

uniPaaS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADD, Cape plc, Adecco, Kuno Kinzoku Industry Co., GE Capital, Dove Tree, CBS Outdoor, Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center, Allstate Life Insurance Company, Titan Software Systems
Cinemark, MixRadio, Sqor Sports, Storyo, JetBlue, The World Bank, Cr_dito Agrcola, Applied Research Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Magic xpa Application Platform vs. Xamarin Platform and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.