10 Best Alternatives To Google's Android App Store

The number of apps in Google Play is to cross 1,00,00,00 milestone, but even then most of the users want to explore new avenues for apps. The reason could be the search for novelty, more fun or for the apps that stand for specific purpose. And so many other app stores and websites have mushroomed in mammoth numbers to cater this want, but the trustworthiness of most of these is questioned. Read on to know 10 best of them as compiled by Economic Times.

#10 Android Pit

Androidpit.com lets you discover and download apps either directly to your phone or on your PC. In addition to the apk apps, the site also provides a dedicated ‘Test’ area with app reviews, screenshots and ratings. About more than 50 percent of the apps can be downloaded directly from this site and for others, it redirects to Google Play store.

There is also an Android Pit app in Google Play which acts as substitute to the main website. Try it now.

#9 1Mobile Market

1mobile.com is the easy way to find and download the best free Android apps and games. The site also recommends apps under specific categories like games, app starter kit, photo editing, music apps are ease of discovery and download.

The website says that it has the collection of more than 3,00,000 free android apps. There is also an android app for 1Mobile which inculcates the features of main website.

#8 SlideMe

Slideme.org is an Android client for managing the discovery and download of Android applications. The site has similar UI as that of Google Play, where you have to create a free account first to download the apps. The interface is fluid and you have the option of limiting apps displayed per page and the number of screenshots to save data costs. There is also an option to select the country to display the local apps and you can lock the app with a PIN. You can also download SlideMe android app from the Google Store.

#7 Amazon Appstore

You can download Amazon Appstore from Amazon.com/getappstore. This android app store was opened on March 22, 2011 and now available in more than nearly 200 countries. The app store has big collections of both the free and paid apps. Amazon’s Kindle tablet has altogether has omitted the Google Play and it relies on company’s app store. 

The Amazon Appstore includes a "free app a day" feature. Every day, an application, frequently a game, is offered for free. On the launch day, this game was Angry Birds Rio (Ad-Free), in itself a promotional game.

#6 Mobo Market

Moborobo.com has apps, games, dedicated section for wallpapers, themes, latest news, reviews and a discussion forum. You also get a built-in download manager where you can monitor the downloads in progress and it also helps in installing and uninstalling the downloaded apps.

#5 AAOMarket

AAOMarket is the Android client of AndAppOnline.com application store. Almost all apps on this marketplace are free. The site claims that they have limited apps because they want to feature only quality apps. However one drawback is that there is progress indicator while downloading the apps, and so you might not know the download time.

#4 F-droid

The F-Droid Repository is an easily-installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The server contains the details of multiple versions of each application like Froyo, Honeycomb, Gingerbread, Ice Cream sandwich, and Jelly Bean, so that you can install the correct one. You can get the F-droid app from F-droid.

#3 Good E-reader App Store

Apps.goodreader.com provides a very basic UI that lists hot and popular apps along with categories to browse through. The plus side is that, the website provides user ratings right next to the app name in the main interface. It also acts as aggregator of other app stores from where you can download the apps too.

APKs FROM THE WEB

#2 AppBrain

AppBrain is a trusted source for Android apps. You have to visit appbrain.com from your device's browser and create an account. Then you need to download and install AppBrain's app from the Play Store.  With AppBrain you can Discover the best Android apps via search, rankings and categories; Easily install and manage your apps directly from the web browser and on the phone with our free Android app; Share the apps installed on; your phone with your friends; New and hot apps of the day; Find top Android apps with a price drop and many other features.

#1 Opera App Store

The Opera Mobile Store is a platform-independent browser-based application store for mobile-phone owners and a digital application distribution platform for developers, owned and maintained by Opera Software ASA. Launched and powered by a third-party provider in March, 2011 the Opera Mobile Store was relaunched on a new platform, after acquisition of Handster, a mobile application store platform company, in January 2012. The Opera App Store has surpassed 100,000 apps as per reports in June.

The service allows users to browse and download applications for over 3000 different mobile phone models on Android, Java, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, iOS, and Windows Mobile. To access the store, just open the web browser on your Android device and type apps.opera.com. The service will auto-detect your device and you can download APKs directly to the device. About 70 percent of the apps are free on this store.

Bonus:

Manufacturer App Stores

Many top manufacturers provide their own app stores. Samsung's Galaxy series of phones have Samsung App Store and Google's Play Store. Similarly, LG phones have LG Smart World, Micromax phones have the Micromax Apps Store and HCL has the SlideME store to name a few.