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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
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (8th), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (6th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)
Xamarin Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
6th
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 Salesforce Platform is 7.9%, down from 9.2% 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

Yasser_Anter - PeerSpot reviewer
Has customization and integration capabilities which increase efficiency
Salesforce could improve by offering AI features or functionalities to help business decision-makers analyze business history, suggest forward strategies, and participate in events. 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. Also, deploying Salesforce took a long time, about four to five months, which is not ideal for any business.
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 lead conversion process in Salesforce Sales Cloud is extremely valuable."
"We use this solution to track customer activities, opportunities and contact information."
"There are no major performance issues in the solution."
"The technical support services are good."
"I like the reports and the dashboards. Since I'm a managing partner, I use the reports and dashboards to understand my team's contact management, opportunity management, and account management activities. We use Pardot for marketing campaigns."
"Its stability, performance, and usability are most valuable."
"The queue management of the solution is its most valuable aspect."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"The solution is easy to understand and has banking integrated. The shorter development time, the bugging and as well as availability of a lot of documentation on the web. Also the native integration is easy."
"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."
"On the market, compared to everyone else, they're the top solution. They're the best solution out there that I could see."
"The Xamarin platform can reduce overhead significantly through code-share and reuse. The typical team size for a Xamarin project is significantly reduced compared to purely native projects."
"It is a true native solution, and we can use the cross-platform framework."
"Because of the C# programming language, we can train our .NET developers to learn Xamarin and develop mobile apps easily."
"The cross platform ability is a great asset."
"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."
 

Cons

"It may be slow, but that is relative. When compared to Siebel CRM, which was large, clunky, and extremely slow, Salesforce seemed fast to me."
"Its documentation and price should be better."
"The cost of data storage is an issue once the company grows."
"The general reports could be made easier in the Salesforce Platform. Generating needs extensive training to know the exact structure of the design. Whenever you search for something you need to know what are the exact fields that you need to view. It's not an easy process to learn."
"Integration needs improvement."
"Salesforce needs to be re-platformed, or re-architected, making it lighter."
"A company needs to carefully consider how they set up Salesforce in order to ensure it benefits them."
"Although the platform is already set up for you, there's a lot of customization that needs to be done, especially for any new component we start using. For whatever solution we wanted, we had to think for ourselves and design it all on our own. And, unfortunately, there were some components that were not really mature in the beginning, like Tableau for example."
"The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds."
"The recent move to .NET MAUI is a big change that's affecting a lot of the good features."
"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."
"The worst build issue concerns are the caching process MSBuild uses to reduce the build time."
"The monitoring of the remote devices is not good as it should be extended along. It would be useful if the log is more integrated with the central console. I am not sure it can be accessed but it would be better."
"Xamarin Platform can improve by making the enterprise documentation better. There's a lot of basic documentation of how to do many of the functions of the solution, but there's not much enterprise-level documentation."
"We'd like to have some chat support functionality."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's additional features can be expensive."
"It is quite expensive. Its developers come at a premium cost, which makes it expensive."
"Salesforce is cheap."
"The price of Salesforce Platform is very expensive. There are other solutions that are similar that cost a quarter of what Salesforce Platform does, such as HubSpot."
"In general, the price is an area where there is always room for improvement."
"It is expensive."
"I rate this solution a six out of ten for pricing. Though the solution is on the pricier side, it still offers good value for money."
"Pricing and license differ and depend on how much license you are purchasing from them."
"There is no license fee because the solution is open-source."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Xamarin is free. There is no license unless you go for some high-end enterprise features. Other than that, everything's free."
"For personal use, the Community Edition is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
23%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.