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Microsoft Azure App Service 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

Microsoft Azure App Service
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (7th)
Xamarin Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure App Service is 4.6%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.9%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Ajit Chandra - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlined development and robust SDK integration with auto and vertical scaling
The main area that requires improvement is the function apps and logic apps, specifically from a VNet integration standpoint. When running in private network configurations, Logic Apps do not fulfill most of the requirements. Deploying Logic Apps in a private network environment becomes complicated due to the extensive white testing and configurations needed at the networking layer.
Prince Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates UI development with XAML, enabling shared UI code across platforms and reducing platform-specific work
I like its simplicity. As someone who didn't start my career as a dedicated developer, I was used to building websites or Windows applications. Transitioning to mobile app development meant learning new languages like Swift or Java. With C# and Xamarin, though, I could leverage my existing skillset. Xamarin, and specifically Xamarin.Forms, let me write my code once and deploy it natively to both Android and iOS. Xamarin.Forms are very useful. Essentially, it's a framework that allows me to create the UI mostly in XAML. This XAML code is then translated into the native UI elements for each respective platform. The advantage is that roughly 90% of my UI code can be shared. This significantly reduces the amount of platform-specific UI work compared to having to write separate UIs for each platform. For the most part, Xamarin's integration with Visual Studio improved the workflow, whether I'm on Windows or Mac. Since I'm familiar with Visual Studio, it provides a comfortable development environment. Additionally, features like Hot Reload and the integration of tools like Copilot help streamline the development process. Overall, it offers a positive development experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The program is stable and we've had no technical issues so far."
"I'm a decision-maker, not a technician. From my perspective, the most significant advantage is that Azure is a one-stop shop. Everything we needed was included in the Microsoft Agreement. During COVID, it was the most convenient and most straightforward decision."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure App Service is autoscaling and resource grouping. Additionally, the integration works well, it is easy to do."
"One of our reasons to use the product is its cloud service. Our usage is mainly on the cloud and we like the benefits that we can get from the cloud. You can easily do the literal shift of your application easily. You can jump into the cloud very quickly."
"The cost is reasonable."
"Some of the features I found valuable are auto-scaling, SSL integration, cost-effectiveness, and the certificates provided by Microsoft Azure App Service."
"It's a platform as a service, so we don't have to manage the infrastructure to hold the websites."
"It is the best because it's easy to use, and there's a plan for every type of workload."
"My favorite feature of Xamarin platform is the Xamarin.Essentials package. I also like the changes seen in Xamarin's upgrade from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI, because in the older Xamarin Platform, Xamarin.Forms gave you multiple libraries of a particular level for a single platform, whereas .NET MAUI comprises a single, organized library that contains everything needed for both Android and iOS."
"You can just write one XM channel core and it'll be used for both iOS and Android."
"I like Renderers in Xamarin. They allow us to use native-platform controls easily."
"Xamarin.Forms are very useful. Essentially, it's a framework that allows me to create the UI mostly in XAML. This XAML code is then translated into the native UI elements for each respective platform."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"Xamarin.Forms reduced the effort and time to build and market our solution, market our features, and get our solution into production."
"The combination of forms for cross-platform UI and C-Sharp for the programming language are my two favorite features."
"Xamarin Platform enables you to use a single code language. This is beneficial for Android, iOS, and Windows platforms, so they can be developed over application or built over application."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Azure App Service could improve by having better integration and connectivity with other platforms. The solution has good integration with other large companies' solutions but there are smaller service platforms companies where there could be integrated better."
"It would be fantastic if Microsoft morphed after my exit service, removing it from subscriptions and moving it to different regions, especially for that service."
"If you're on the cloud, you just get a web interface without much detail for additional configuration or the authority to configure the root or system-level configuration."
"Lacking somewhat in template data flows."
"I thought it would be better to have a template to publish directly to Microsoft Azure App Service using GitHub because there were some documents related to Azure DevOps."
"There is always room for improvement price-wise."
"There is still room for improvement in terms of the maturity of the solution. Everything is available that we need, but the issue is that they are still upgrading. Even though they have Azure applications and automation services, they still need to mature more. There are many things that need to mature and the road map for this is quite long, taking another three to eight years to have a mature solution."
"Sometimes we face problems, but those are technical problems in Microsoft, bugs or something doesn't work as expected, but that's normal."
"The recent move to .NET MAUI is a big change that's affecting a lot of the good features."
"From time to time, it is a bit harder to code some specific scenarios compared to the native approach."
"There is room for increasing the scale a little bit further with the designer in the Visual Studio, more specifically, Xamarin.Android Designer in Visual Studio."
"There are compatibility issues between versions of various Xamarin components."
"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."
"I feel that the Android AppCompat library creates a lot of issues. A lot of development time is often wasted solving these issues."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"The worst build issue concerns are the caching process MSBuild uses to reduce the build time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Where there are different customer sizes, some customers consume $5,000 US dollars per month. I have some customers who pay and consume more than $20,000 US dollars per month, for example. It is determined by customer sizes and requirements, which vary from month to month."
"I rate Microsoft Azure App Service a seven out of ten for pricing."
"The cost depends on the App Service plan that you choose. There are a number of tiers available."
"The price of the support could improve. It is expensive."
"The pricing for this solution is set in tiers, with the overall cost depending on the features that are required. I would advise organizations to have a detailed look at the functions they need, to ensure that they are in the correct pricing tier."
"Microsoft Azure App Service is an expensive platform, but it depends on the data ingestion. There's a pay-as-you-go plan and a savings plan for compute, but total costs depend on data ingestion and disk space. For high performance, security, and isolation, Microsoft offers a disk space of 1 TB, with a pay-as-you-go price of $40 per hour, if I'm not mistaken."
"We have no complaints about the pricing."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a five. The product is affordable."
"The product is inexpensive."
"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."
"Xamarin Platform is open-source, but there are fees for deployment, the API Store and Play Store, and using third-party libraries."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"It saved a lot of time and resources needed to develop a cross platform mobile app."
"There is no requirement for a license. It is available for free as an open-source product."
"Xamarin Platform is a free open-source solution."
"Xamarin is available under several licensing arrangements. Each developer needs one license at least. All features, especially the Profiler, unlock only with the highest tier."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
23%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Would you choose Microsoft Azure App Service or PowerApps?
Microsoft Azure App Service is helpful if you need to set up temporary servers for customers to run their programs in locations that other cloud providers do not cater to. When servers are closer t...
Do you recommend Microsoft Azure App Service?
I highly recommend Microsoft Azure. We have been using it for nearly four years. We mostly use it for creating and maintaining websites, such as content management systems like WordPress sites, whi...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure App Service?
One valuable feature of Azure App Service for us is its integration with Azure DevOps, which we heavily rely on in our development process.
What do you like most about Xamarin Platform?
Xamarin.Forms are very useful. Essentially, it's a framework that allows me to create the UI mostly in XAML. This XAML code is then translated into the native UI elements for each respective platform.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Xamarin Platform?
Xamarin Platform is free, and we use an Azure subscription at a relatively low cost for our builds. It offers a good value for money, although it requires time to make it work effectively.
What needs improvement with Xamarin Platform?
The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Microsoft and Google. The lack of robust documentation and support for third-party bin...
 

Also Known As

Azure App Service, MS Azure App Service
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Real Madrid, Absolut, AccuWeather, Heineken, NBC News, Paramount
Cinemark, MixRadio, Sqor Sports, Storyo, JetBlue, The World Bank, Cr_dito Agrcola, Applied Research Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure App Service vs. Xamarin Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,579 professionals have used our research since 2012.