Let’s face the facts. We all live under the safe, warm umbrella of the Play Store. There’s a good reason for that. It has the most apps, intensely good security (comparatively speaking), comes pre-installed on most Android devices, and usually works well. Most people know that there are other options out there, but there isn’t a ton of information about other app stores. This is something we can help with. Below, we have some of the best third-party app stores listed. You can follow these instructions to install third-party APKs on your device. Please note that we are not responsible if something goes wrong while using one of these.
The best third party app stores for Android
- Amazon Appstore
- APKMirror
- APKPure
- APKUpdater
- Aptoide
- F-Droid
- Uptodown
- QooApp
- Samsung Galaxy Apps
- TapTap
Amazon Appstore
Price: Free
The Amazon App Store is likely the most competent app store aside 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 of Amazon’s various apps, and it used to be the sole home of Amazon Prime Video. This is an actual app that you can install on any Android device without a ton of issues. It also runs concurrently with other app stores if you want to use more than one. It could definitely use some optimizations, but it’s otherwise more positive than negative. We do wish it had a better selection, though.
APKMirror
Price: Free
Okay, so APKMirror isn’t technically an app store but rather an app repository. You can find all kinds of stuff here, including some beta apps not available in the Play Store. However, you can still get updates from the Play Store if a newer version comes out, so it’s an excellent secondary source for apps and some games. This definitely isn’t 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 preferences. It’s surprisingly safe to use, and it’s a source we often link to in our other articles.
APKPure
Price:Free
APKPure is a third-party app store with a lot of upsides. It has a lot of popular apps like TikTok, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, UC Browser, PUBG Mobile, Brawl Stars, and many others. The app store features a clean, coherent UI with a decent search bar and a good overall selection. It has a lot more categories than the Google Play Store, although some categories are a little light in terms of good apps to download. You can get the basics here with no problem, including some Google apps like Gmail.
APKUpdater
Price: Free
APKUpdater isn’t really an app store, but it has a neat function. You can update your existing apps without using another app store. It sources downloads from multiple sources, so you get the latest updates as quickly as possible. The UI is simple Material Design without any problems. It’s a good way to keep your device up-to-date without the hassle of having a full-blown app store on your phone. There is a search for other apps, but it’s not quite as good as a dedicated app store.
Aptoide
Price: Free
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, the main draw of Aptoide is its looser regulations for content. You can find adult (NSFW) apps and games here, as well as questionable apps like Show Box. Of course, this gives the app store a bit of a badlands feel, so make sure you pack an antivirus 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 actually affect many people.
F-Droid
Price: Free
F-Droid is one of the older app stores on the list and among the most trustworthy. The store experience is mostly for productivity and power-user stuff. We’re talking about apps like an Arch Linux package browser, for example. There are some basic apps on there, like Simple Gallery or Simple Calendar, along with a very small selection of games. However, by and large, this is an app store for people who need something a little 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
Price: Free
Uptodown has been providing users with safe and reliable apps since the early 2000s. One reason to choose this app over the Play Store is that it enables you to download various software that’s not available there; this includes regional apps and games, as well as games from other developers or games in beta mode. It usually includes freemium games, as there is no payment option currently available. The apps you download are linked to the Play Store, so you won’t have trouble updating them. There is an online website available, but you can also download the Android app.
QooApp
Price: Free
QooApp is an app store for those who enjoy Asian games from Asian developers. You can find all kinds of stuff here, although only some of it has an 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 fairly 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 UI and simple navigation. It actually has some rather popular apps and games, including Microsoft, Netflix, Hulu, Fortnite, Brawl Stars, and others. It’s not an end-all-be-all kind of thing, but those with Samsung devices have a decent secondary app store along with Google Play right on their devices already.
TapTap
Price: Free
TapTap is an Asian-oriented app store. It’s a decent way to get games with distinctly different global versions, such as Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. All of the games on this one are in Japanese, Chinese, or Korean. It links to both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, so there will be no issues. The UI is pretty smooth; you can search games by release date, popularity, access region-locked games, and download and discover beta games. You can download the lite version available on Play Store or the full version from the link below.
Honorary Mentions
There are plenty of other app stores on the Internet. Some of them are pretty good, and some of them are only kind of serviceable. Many of these are listed for the sake of completion. Here we go:
- ACMarket: ACMarket is a surprisingly good-looking app store. It is reminiscent of Google Play in a lot of ways and includes some popular apps and games. It also supports modified APKs and other such things. Tread carefully because some of that stuff can be suspect.
- Getjar: Getjar is kind of the Wild West of app stores for Android. You can find all kinds of ridiculous things here, including adult content, modified APKs, and some popular stuff like UC Browser. Tread lightly; this place always gives us the heebie-jeebies.
- Github: Github isn’t an app store on the face of it, but there are a lot of excellent open-source projects that get posted there. You can find apps, download the APK, and install them straight from there. There are some rather big apps there, along with some entertaining projects. However, there is no specific directory for Android apps, so they can be hard to find.
- Mobilism: Mobilism is a smaller app store with a few extra features. It also includes over 800,000 ebooks. The app works as a crowd-sourced app store, where you get the app from the hosting provider the uploader chooses. It has some good ideas, so we give it an honorable mention.
- SlideMe: SlideMe is another older app store similar to Aptoide and Getjar. The website doesn’t inspire confidence, but the store itself works okay. You can find stuff like OfficeSuite or WPS Office there, along with other similar productivity apps. Its game selection is very weak, though.
- XDA-Developers: There are a lot of developers that use XDA-Developers as a kind of test ground for apps that eventually end up on Google Play most of the time. You can get root-only apps like Xposed or Viper4Android here.
If we missed your favorite app store, tell us about them in the comments below.
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