What is difference between Robot Framework and Appium?

Question

I see Robot Framework as a generic automation framework designed for testing mobile apps.

But how is it different than Appium? Is it because Appium is cross-platform?

My question really is whats the difference between robot framework and appium?

Answer 1

Robot Framework is a generic open source automation framework. It is not only used for testing mobile apps. It can be used for web testing, windows apps testing, api testing and much more. It is just a framework though. It requires different tools and libraries for doing specific tasks like AppiumLibrary can be used in RobotFramework for mobile testing and SeleniumLibrary for web testing.

Appium on the other hand is a framework primarily made for mobile testing and has built-in functionalities to do so.

Answer 2

"Robot Framework:

1. Open source
2. Generic Framework using which we can automate not only mobile but also web application.
3. Robot Framework is very flexible and it can be used to test web applications, mobile applications, desktop applications, and RESTful and SOAP-based services
4. Robot Framework has an easy syntax, utilizing human-readable keywords ie Uses Keyword driven approach

Appium :

1. Appium is an open-source tool for automating apps on Android, iOS, and Windows.
2. Appium can be used for automation of native apps (apps written using Android, iOS, or Windows SDKs), Hybrid apps, and Mobile web apps (web applications accessible using a mobile web browser)
3. Easy-to-write tests across any language using any framework

Lets says if we want to use Robot framework to automate mobile apps, we still have to import appium library inside the robot framework , only then we can automate mobile using Robot framework."

Here is the link to open source project - GitHub - testsigmahq/testsigma: A powerful open source test automation platform for Web Apps, Mobile Apps, and APIs. Build stable and reliable end-to-end tests @ DevOps speed.