22 Alternatives to Google Play

The only market which comes to mind thinking of Android apps is the Google Market (Google Play). But Google Play is not the only Android market. There are many non-popular Android markets.  Here are some of the Android markets.

Amazon App Store

The Amazon App Store is the greatest alternative of the Google Play. It is the default App Market for the Amazon’s Kindle line of tablets. It offers a much smaller selection of apps and games, but everything has passed Amazon’s quality control standards. The main advantage of the Amazon App store is the Daily Promotion has featured some Premium App for free.

It is limited to the U.S. , UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain and now extended to Japan. The cost of the premium apps are also very low.

Official Site: http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011

Slide ME

The Slide Me market is very popular due to its user database. All the apps can be uploaded in the Slide ME market for free but in Google Play, its about Rs.5000.

The other features are, they provide payment facility for premium apps through PayPal and this market provides a better description for all the apps. According to crunchbase, SlideMe has over 25,000 unique daily visitors.

Official Site: http://slideme.org/

Samsung App Store

This app store provides android applications only for the Samsung devices. It provides most of the premium apps for free, hence this android mart has mote number of users.

EA app store

This app store is inbuilt in most of the Sony devices and it provides only EA games to the users. This app mart is not very popular as most of the apps are premium and also the cost is high. The number of apps are also very low.

GetJar

This market is very basic but it provides various categories for all the apps which makes the user to find the app which fulfill their requirements. GetJar’s clever draw is to offer premium apps to users for free to generate traffic and then monetize that traffic with advertising dollars.

Surprisingly this market has about 50million users worldwide.

Official Site: http://www.getjar.com/

F-Droid

The very specific feature of F-Droid is free and open source software (FOSS) Android apps. It’s basic, but there is some categorization and the list is searchable.

You’ll find a big selection of free apps here and they all promise no tracking, no ads, and no dependencies.

Official Site: http://f-droid.org/

Yahoo App store

Yahoo has started its own android market recently. Though the number of apps is very low, it is believed to be popular very soon.

Official Site: http://apps.search.yahoo.com/

Appsfire

One of the very popular android market and has won a double award at the French Startup Awards 2013. It has over 70 million users worldwide.

Official Site: http://new.appsfire.com/

Appoke

The focus here is on social recommendations, you can also share opinions on apps and see what apps friends are using easily. Most of the apps are free. You can earn credits and use them to get premium apps. You can also buy apps with PayPal.

Official Site:  http://appoke.com/

Android Pit

The Android Pit.Inc has created a beautifully clean and easily navigable app store.  Complete with a 5 star rating scale and an easy to use interface, Android Pit is a great site to use. The Website UI is also very good. The Android Pit also has an official Forum.

Official Site: http://www.androidpit.com/en/android-market

App Brain

The listing feature of the App Brain Android Market is very good. You would be able to search the apps by location,ranking,category, etc. It also enables you to share the app to your friends through facebook.

Official Site: http://www.appbrain.com/

Android Zoom

Android Zoom has over 200,000 followers on facebook and is a fast growing android mart. The unique feature of the Android Zoom is that, they review different apps in a unique way through YouTube.

Official Site: http://www.appszoom.com/

Yandex

Yandex is an Russian competitor of the Google Play. It has over 50,000 apps. This android mart may not be very popular but it is the owner of the world famous Android launcher, the SPB Shell. This android mart has an built-in Kaspersky Malware checker.

Official Site: http://store.yandex.com/

Market-Enabler

Market-Enabler is an application to fake the phones location and access markets from other countries — does not circumvent need to add google account to device. The Market-Enabler does not have a web UI and the android app can be downloaded at https://code.google.com/p/market-enabler/

BlackMart

This is actually a black market. This app enables you to get paid or premium apps for free. But this market is very buggy and not reliable. this android market also does not have the web UI.

APKSuite

This Android Mart has only 150 users world-wide, it may be due to the fact that this mart only provides gaming apps.

Official Site: http://apksuite.com/

BlapkMarket

This market has an official website but does not provide apps in it but supports only forum. You need to install the app to use this market.

Official Site: http://blapkmarket.cz/en/app/

PandaApp

PandaApp provides free mobile applications, games, themes for iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and Symbian. But provides android application only in web UI and does not have an official android app.

Official Site: http://www.pandaapp.com/

Butterscotch

The Butterscotch has more android apps but has a poor web UI, so that you need to search for each app.

Official Site: http://www.butterscotch.com//

Mobile9 App Store

One of the very popular app store. Mobile9 provides many free offers. It searches for apps according to the device compatibility. This is one of the unique features of this android market.

Official Site: http://mobile9.com/

Zedge

This popular mobile site provides a huge variety of android themes and widgets. It does not provide other apps. This is one of the major drawbacks.

Official Site: http://www.zedge.net/

Sony App Store

Sony has its own app store in most of the Sony devices. This app store is in the name of “Recommendations” in the Sony devices. The great drawback is that the number of apps is very very low but all the available apps are premium apps.