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Salesforce 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

Salesforce Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (9th), Rapid Application Development Software (6th), Low-Code Development Platforms (6th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (12th)
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 January 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 6.7%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Xamarin Platform is 6.1%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Platform6.7%
Xamarin Platform6.1%
Other87.2%
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Sharmila-K - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Transformations and Infrastructure Delivery Manager at a university with 10,001+ employees
Integration processes improve but scripting requires effort
The updates, pricing part, and upgrades to the products are some of the most valuable features with the Salesforce Platform.With the Salesforce Platform, I have minimal experience of approximately one and a half years. I get minimal exposure, once every three or two months, especially during holidays. The Salesforce Platform is connected to the cloud, which is beneficial. When it is integrated with different tools such as Microsoft BI Analytics, it helps us analyze much better. Currently, the integration itself is tricky as we have to use extensive scripting. It should be more of a plug-in and use solution. That is the only issue I see, but otherwise, I appreciate it.
Prince Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at AAPC
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 presentation is clear and easy to comprehend."
"It's very flexible and offers tremendous features for customers."
"The reporting tools are very solid."
"The solution is easy to use."
"What I like about the Salesforce Platform, in particular, its enterprise edition is that apart from its many features, you can have a wider view of the customers, a 360-degree view. I also enjoy managing opportunities in the Salesforce Platform a lot because it's easier and gives you a wider view, compared to HubSpot."
"Salesforce provides customization that aligns with our organization's lifecycle management of opportunities. It integrates with our call records, meeting notes, and the Outlook calendar, which helps in mapping roles and managing opportunities effectively."
"One can do almost everything using Salesforce's OOTB functionality without much investment."
"It is an easy product to use and does great things for our company. It keeps track of all of our sales activity."
"The most valuable feature of the Xamarin Platform is that both the UI are the same in Android and iOS, in one project and Android and iOS, are applications for developing PCL projects. Additionally, the dashboard is good."
"The combination of forms for cross-platform UI and C-Sharp for the programming language are my two favorite features."
"The solution's most valuable asset is its shared code base in C# that is better for large apps."
"The most important impact is the reduction in product lifecycle costs."
"We were able to optimize the service organization for one of our clients."
"Plugins like MvvmCross make a developer’s life easy."
"For me, developing apps for iOS and Android is a dream came true, without migrating to Objective-C or Java. Xamarin enables me to do so."
"It usually saves time for application development. We write once and the code works everywhere."
 

Cons

"Currently, the integration itself is tricky as we have to use extensive scripting. It should be more of a plug-in and use solution."
"I have found it takes an exceedingly long time to put opportunities or clients in the system. If I have an opportunity that I need to put in the system it could take approximately 10 minutes. This is a lot of time when you have multiple opportunities to put in. There are other tasks to do that are required by supervisors, such as forecasts. What I have done to save time is I did not input as much detail as I could have because I knew it was going to take me an hour to get five leads in."
"Instead of creating our own template, if we had some nice templates that we could pick up - if there were some Microsoft Word templates or Microsoft Excel templates in a repository in Salesforce, that would be great."
"The previous version had a complicated interface where multiple pages and data entries were required, which was not pleasant for sales teams or business users."
"The initial setup process was a complex thing to do because four different organizations were working together."
"Identification management systems integration should be easier."
"The cost of data storage is an issue once the company grows."
"The marketing automation needs improvement."
"Xamarin Platform lacks in app size."
"It needs offline sync capabilities to store data on devices persistently."
"The problem that I faced was that the communication, the roles, and the responsibilities, weren't defined between Microsoft and Xamarin."
"Xamarin's profiling tools are only available for the highest tier of MSDN subscription and compatibility with platform-native profiling tools is rather lacking. This causes friction when working on performance-related issues."
"There are compatibility issues between versions of various Xamarin components."
"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."
"From time to time, it is a bit harder to code some specific scenarios compared to the native approach."
"The primary area for improvement is the support for third-party libraries, especially for major providers like Microsoft and Google."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing and license differ and depend on how much license you are purchasing from them."
"Costly, but it is the top product in SaaS/PaaS. Pricing is more for large to enterprise level companies."
"It is expensive."
"I haven't had to buy Salesforce, however, I have heard it's $1500 a user."
"The product's additional features can be expensive."
"The licensing is on the expensive side, but most clients engage in negotiations to reach a more favorable agreement. For stand-alone or medium-sized clients, it can be relatively costly."
"In general, the price is an area where there is always room for improvement."
"rice-wise, the solution is reasonable for what we're getting."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"Xamarin is free, or comes with Visual Studio. Therefore, it is very profitable."
"This is an open-source solution, but there is a subscription charge to use the App Center of around $100."
"There's no licensing cost for Xamarin."
"I think the solution is free."
"My company provided all the licenses that we need to support our use of Xamarin Platform."
"You can build in Xamarin without paying any money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
21%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise39
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?
I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...
How does Salesforce Platform compare with Azure?
Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is not easy or intuitive to deploy. The difficulty will be impacted by the type of application that you are trying to use the platform to build. Organizations tha...
Do you build applications using low-code or pro-code builders on Salesforce Platform?
At my organization, we have only used Salesforce Platform's low-code builder. The reason for this is not because we do not like the pro-code option, but because we do not see the need of using it, ...
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

Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADP
Cinemark, MixRadio, Sqor Sports, Storyo, JetBlue, The World Bank, Cr_dito Agrcola, Applied Research Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce Platform vs. Xamarin Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.