Let’s face the facts. We all live under the safe, warm umbrella of the Play Store. There is a good reason for that. It has the most apps, extremely good security (relatively speaking), comes pre-installed on most Android devices, and usually works well. Most people know there are other options, but there isn’t a ton of information out there about other app stores. This is something we can help with. Listed below are some of the best third-party app stores. You can follow these instructions to install third-party APKs on your device. Please note that we are not responsible if anything goes wrong while using one of these.
Best Third Party App Stores for Android
Amazon Appstore
Price: Free
The Amazon App Store is probably the most competent application store apart from the Play Store itself. It’s the stock app store on all Amazon Fire devices. The store has a variety of apps, including some big, popular names. It also has all the various Amazon apps, and used to be the sole home of Amazon Prime Video. This is a real app that you can install on any Android device without a lot of trouble. It also works concurrently with other app stores if you want to use more than one. It could definitely use some optimizations, but otherwise it’s more positive than negative. We wish he had a better choice, though.
Okay, so APKMirror isn’t technically an app store, it’s an app repository. You can find all kinds of stuff here, including some beta apps that aren’t available in the Play Store. However, you can still get updates from the Play Store if a newer version comes out, so it’s a great secondary source for apps and some games. This is definitely not a full store experience and we really only recommend it if you want to try something specific or find an older APK of an existing app so you can roll back to a previous version due to bugs or settings. It’s surprisingly safe to use, and it’s a resource we often link to in our other articles.
APKPure is a third-party app store with many advantages. It has many popular apps like TikTok, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, UC Browser, PUBG Mobile, Brawl Stars and many more. The app store has a clean, coherent user interface with a decent search bar and good overall selection. It has a lot more categories than the Google Play Store, although some categories are a little weaker in terms of good apps to download. You can get the basics here without a problem, including some Google apps like Gmail.
APKUpdater isn’t really an app store, but it does have a neat feature. You can update your existing apps without using another app store. It pulls downloads from multiple sources, so you get the latest updates as quickly as possible. The UI is simple material design without any issues. It’s a good way to keep your device up to date without the hassle of having a full app store on your phone. There is a search for other apps, but it’s not as good as a dedicated app store.
Aptoide is one of the oldest third-party app stores on the list. It has a bunch of modern apps like Facebook, Nest, YoWindow Weather, Fleksy and many recent games. However, Aptoide’s main advantage is its looser content regulations. Here you can find adult apps and games (NSFW), as well as questionable apps like Show Box. Of course, this gives the app store a dead-end feel, so be sure to pack an anti-virus app if you use this one. Aptoide suffered a data breach in 2020. However, since you can use the service without creating an account, its security issues didn’t really affect many people.
F-Droid is one of the older app stores on the list and among the most trusted. The store experience is mostly for productivity and power users. For example, we are talking about applications such as the Arch Linux package browser. There are some basic apps, like Simple Gallery or Simple Calendar, along with a very small selection of games. Overall, though, this is the app store for people who need something extra that the Play Store doesn’t have. F-Droid is open source and every app on the platform is open source. You can even find alternatives to F-Droid itself on F-Droid. This is a neat little app store.
Uptodown has been providing users with secure and reliable applications since the early 2000s. One of the reasons to choose this app over the Play Store is that it allows you to download different software that is not available there; this includes regional apps and games, as well as third-party games or games in beta mode. It usually includes freemium games, since there is currently no payment option available. The apps you download are linked to the Play Store, so you’ll have no problem updating them. There is a website available, but you can also download an app for Android.
QooApp is an app store for those who enjoy Asian games by Asian developers. You can find all sorts of things here, although only some of them have English (or any other non-Asian language) translation. This is mostly useful for getting Japanese variants of global games like Final Fantasy Brave Exvius.
Samsung Galaxy Store
Price: Free
It’s a shame that the Galaxy Store is only available on Samsung devices because it’s actually quite competent. The selection is obviously smaller than the Play Store and even a little smaller than Amazon’s App Store. However, it has a clean user interface and easy navigation. It actually has some pretty popular apps and games, including Microsoft, Netflix, Hulu, Fortnite, Brawl Stars, and more. It’s not the end-all, be-all, but those with Samsung devices already have a decent secondary app store alongside Google Play on their devices.
TapTap is an Asian-oriented app store. It’s a decent way to get games with distinctly different global versions, like Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. All the games on this one are in Japanese, Chinese or Korean. It connects to Google Play Store and Apple App Store, so there will be no problem. The UI is pretty slick; you can search games by release date, popularity, access region-locked games, and download and discover beta games. You can download the simple version available on the Play Store or the full version from the link below.
Honorable mentions
There are many other app stores on the Internet. Some of them are quite good, and some are barely usable. Many of them are listed for completeness. Let’s go:
- ACMarket: ACMarket is a surprisingly beautiful app store. It resembles Google Play in many ways and includes some popular apps and games. It also supports modded APKs and other such things. Be careful because some of these things can be suspicious.
- Obtaining: Getjar is kind of the Wild West of Android app stores. You can find all kinds of funny stuff here, including adult content, modded APKs, and some popular stuff like UC Browser. Tread lightly; this place always gives us the heebie-jeebies.
- Github: Github is not an app store at first glance, but there are many excellent open source projects published there. You can find apps, download APKs and install them directly there. There are some pretty great apps, along with some fun projects. However, there is no separate directory for Android apps, so they are hard to find.
- Mobilism: Mobilism is a smaller app store with a few extra features. It also includes more than 800,000 e-books. The app works like a multi-source app store, where you get the app from a hosting provider chosen by the uploader. He has some good ideas, so we give him an honorable mention.
- Slide me: SlideMe is another older app store similar to Aptoide and Getjar. The website does not inspire confidence, but the store itself works as it should. There you can find things like OfficeSuite or WPS Office, along with other similar productivity apps. His selection of games is very weak though.
- XDA Developers: There are many developers who use XDA-Developers as a sort of testing ground for apps that end up on Google Play most of the time. You can only get root apps like Xposed or Viper4Android here.
If we missed your favorite app store, tell us about them in the comments below.