Just because Google reigns supreme as the most popular (app) storefront doesn't mean we are obligated to use it. Obtainium (GitHub) Finding the best Google Play Store alternativesĪs Google keeps monopolizing digital distribution services, it starts pushing more developers who want to publish apps out the door. All in all, Obtainium may be a tricky app to set up initially, but if you're only installing a few apps anyway, it becomes an excellent plugin to assist with management. You can also set up Obtainium to notify you when an app developer releases an update or set it up to check in intervals (so it doesn't immediately use up all your data). So, if you're hoping to use Obtainium for app discovery, you'll have a hard time. The downside of Obtainium is that it requires you to manually add apps or search for sources. It's an excellent way to cut out the middle man of needing an app store to acquire some apps, especially if you're a user who doesn't care for an app store's bloatware. You can think of Obtainium as a helpful plugin it allows you to grab apps from the actual sources and all the updates that come with it. It will pull up apps hosted from other open sources, such as GitHub and F-Droid. We've included Obtainium (by ImranR98) as an honorable mention on this list, as Obtainium plays more of a supportive role in retrieving APKs. So improvements are likely to continue, making this a noteworthy choice as an alternative to keep in your back pocket. Still, the developers are working hard to bring AppGallery up to speed as a complete replacement for the Play Store major changes to the store were pushed through in 2020 to focus on honing in on popular and familiar apps. Unfortunately, app discovery is still a weak point for AppGallery. Huawei lets you download apps directly from the store, but if the store doesn't have the app, you can grab the linked APK by tapping 'get' (as opposed to 'install' for current app listings). But thankfully, any Android-powered device has access to Huawei AppGallery, and most will find it much less cluttered and more straightforward to navigate than the Play Store. Huawei devices come preloaded with the AppGallery already since, unfortunately, Huawei doesn't play nice with Google ( considering that all Google-serviced apps are banned).

It still has a ways to go to catch up to Google, but still, over the years, it has impressively grown, laying in around 580 million monthly active users (in 2022).

1000 free games to play downloads