Best, lightest, and most awesome Android launchers

Ah, Android and its beauty! Without a shadow of doubt, it has the upper hand when it comes to flexibility and customizability - its biggest rivals (iOS and Windows Phone) literally don't stand a chance in this one-horse race. Thanks to this fundamental aspect of Android, almost any manufacturer out there usually snaps a home-brewed user interface suite on their devices. HTC's Sense and Samsung's TouchWiz are probably the most popular custom UIs for Android, but let's face it – not everyone likes the looks and the bag of features that these come with.

Fortunately, you can easily modify the interface looks of your Android device and make it suit your liking. Probably the easiest way to do so is by installing a custom 3rd-party launcher. Not only custom launchers provide you __with different looks, they also come __with a wide range of nifty customization features and options that are rarely found in stock UIs.

While we are on the subject of home screen replacements, we decided to search the depths of Google Play and pick some of the best Android launchers out there. Check them out and don't forget to tell us which one is your favorite!

Our Top 5 picks

Nova Launcher / Nova Launcher Prime

Download Nova Launcher / Nova Launcher Prime ($3.99)

The best, bar none. It's been a few years since Nova Launcher has been our go-to choice for a custom Android launcher. In late 2016, this still holds true, now even more so.Unlike other apps that have gradually degraded over time, Nova is still going strong, scoring new features and polishing existing ones to the point where it can safely serve as a model of excellence, an exemplar app that everyone should strive to match.

Enough with the flattery, what are the selling points of Nova Launcher? The answer is simple - customizability, snappiness, and great user experience. Shipping with classic AOSP looks by default, Nova could be easily transformed into whatever you like due to its emphasis on tweaking and deeply customizing your interface.

That's why some of the best and most beautiful screenshots of Android interfaces rely on the Nova Launcher backbone -- there's hardly anything you can't do with this one. In the meantime, it plays quite nicely with almost any hardware you throw it at, providing a snappy and pleasing experience even on older phones.

Recently, Nova scored some of Pixel Launcher's lately-introduced features, like the slide-up app drawer and search bar, as well as new search view comprising a bunch of new tabs. 

Oh, and if you're considering this one, we highly recommend getting the Prime version -- it's worth it. 

Nova Launcher

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Nova Launcher

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Apex Launcher / Apex Launcher Pro

Download Apex Launcher / Apex Launcher Pro ($3.99)

If Nova Launcher is a viable alternative to any stock Android launcher, then Apex is definitely a viable alternative to Nova. Apex Launcher is pretty similar to Nova in terms of customization prowess, features, and overall user experience. Indeed, whatever you are able to do in Nova, you can do in Apex as well.

Apex is one of those launchers that don't look particularly good right out of the box and required you to fine-tune and tweak this until you're satisfied with the way it looks. Some may see this as a serious flaw, but we feel like it's a feature.

However, one of the deal-breaking differences that tip the scales in Nova's favor is that it gets updated more frequently. In the meantime, Apex does not require you to purchase its 'pro' version to make use of some basic features, like icon scaling.

Apex Launcher

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Apex Launcher

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Google Now Launcher

Download Google Now Launcher (free)

If you don't really care about customization (we get it, it's time-consuming and pointless, all things considered), then you'd likely want to get a simple launcher that simply works right out of the box. Like Google Now.

The epitome of the vanilla Android experience, Google Now does not try to drown you with a hefty amount of options and features right out of the bat. In contrast, it feels just like 'home', providing a solid and mostly pleasing experience to the regular user who likes its clean aesthetics and having Google Now just a swipe away.

Until (and if) the newer Pixel Launcher makes an official arrival to all Android devices, Google Now is your best bet if you wish your device to appear more stock-ish.

Google Now

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Google Now

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ZenUI Launcher

Download ZenUI Launcher (free)

Name a feature and ZenUI will most likely have it -- from different layouts, to custom icon packs, to custom transitions, to unread accounts badges, to launcher themes, to icon/text scaling, this one seemingly has it all. 

Don't want an app drawer? Fine, ZenUI allows you to have all your apps scattered across a few screens. Love that custom icon pack you've seen featured by us? No worries, just download it and apply it in ZenUI in a jiffy. Bored with the look of your homescreen? Well, might we suggest downloading a full theme for ZenUI and spicing things up?

Although it's not as snappy as some of the other entries in this pick, we'd definitely suggest ZenUI launcher if you're looking for a completely free and highly customizable alternative to your stock or favorite custom Android launcher.

ZenUI Launcher

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Arrow Launcher

Download Arrow Launcher (free)

Yes, apart from everything else, Microsoft is also maintaining a pretty impressive portfolio of Android apps as well, with its Arrow Launcher being one of the most popular and highly-rated on the Play Store. What sets it apart from everything else out there?

It's main appeal and selling point is undoubtedly the paginated screen setup, which stretches a tad further from what a regular launcher does. By default, your home screen with a bunch of apps appears right out of the bat, but swiping left or right will let you access custom screens which will be showing your favorite contacts, to-do lists, rich notification preview screen, and finally, your OneDrive documents. Oh, and the dock at the bottom sports a nifty slide-out quick settings menu, which lets you easily access some essential device functions, somewhat reminding us of iOS' Control Center.

Customizability-wise, Microsoft lets you change the icon pack, enable double-tap-to-lock, hide certain apps, and tweak several other not that notable features. The beautiful built-in wallpapers are also a nice touch. Definitely worth the time to download and set up!

Arrow Launcher

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Other notable omissions:

A few other notable launchers for Android

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This one is as minimilast and dead-simple as possible, quickly becoming a favorite of ours. It also features some slick animations while holding its ground in terms of snappiness, warranting a pleasant experience. Simplicity is ensured by the simplistic setup - you get one home screen with a nifty spotlight search. Your apps and widgets are neatly tucked in a slide-out drawer positioned on the left side of the screen. That's pretty much it. You can change the icon pack for the whole launcher and also select different icons for the different apps you might have. Oh, the home screen layout is also customizable.

Evie

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=is.shortcut

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It might be lacking in the feature department, but Nokia's Z Launcher is a pretty easy-to-use home screen replacement. Just write the first letter of the app you want to launch and Z Launcher will comply. Nokia's launcher is a contextual one, which means that it keeps tabs on your day-to-day "app" habits and tries to suggest the relevant apps at the correct time. It's as straightforward as it gets, and just recently scored support for custom icon packs.

Z Launcher by Nokia

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nokia.z

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Oh, we love the simplicity of this one! We know it might sound like a good ol' cliche, but ap15 redefines that whole "Android launcher" thingy. It's a text-based launcher that displays all of your apps on the screen -- so simple, yet so efficient. The more you open a given app, the larger its text entry becomes, which lets you access your favorite apps more easily. You can customize the font of the text entries, as well as their size, color, and opacity; you can do so for all text entries or for individual apps only. The background is also changeable. All in all, an intriguing minimalistic app that is different than everything else out there.

ap15

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aurhe.ap15&hl=en

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This is one of the more curious yet still functional Android launchers we've seen of . The signature feature of Smart Launcher are the so-called "bubbles" - a circular dial of several apps that are neatly positioned on your home screen. Its app drawer, which can be accessed by swiping right, sorts your apps in several tabs - Media, Internet, Utilities, Games, etc. One of the few downsides of the launcher is that it doesn't support widgets - if you are a fan of these, you'll have to purchase Smart Launcher Pro 2.

Smart Launcher 3

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ginlemon.flowerfree

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Chris Lacy's Action Launcher 3 is a total overhaul of Action Launcher 2, and lo and behold, it now boasts most of Pixel Launcher's lucrative new features, like swipe dock up to fire up your app drawer and the new outline folder previews. Action Launcher was popular for not having a regular app drawer for a long time - swiping your home screen right will take you to an alphabetical list with all of your apps. Well, you can now access your app drawer by either swiping your dock up or swiping the homescreen right, which is a bit confusing.

Meanwhile, Action Launcher 3 is strikingly light and smooth - interface lag and hiccups will probably be seen as scarce as hen's teeth. It also has a killer feature - thanks to Covers, users can interact with app icons in whole new way: tapping the icon will launch the app in question, but swiping the icon will open a folder. Nifty.

Action Launcher 3

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlauncher.playstore

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After a long period of being in beta and an eventual acquisition by Yahoo, the contextual Aviate Launcher has been available for all Android users since mid-June. It takes into consideration certain factors and will dynamically change the apps and links on your home screen. When you wake up, for example, you'll be treated to some news and weather information; when you arrive at the office Aviate will show you productivity apps; when the launcher finds out that you are driving on the, say, highway, it can bump music and navigation apps on your home screen. Neat indeed.

Yahoo Aviate Launcher

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cooeeui.zenlauncher

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The most prominent feature of Buzz Launcher is that it allows its users to download complete home screen setups. Don't confuse thеsе with themes - apart from coming with their own icon sets and wallpapers, these setups also rock their own layouts. Thus, almost each and every home screen setup has a completely different look and feel. Users can also create their own setups and share them. Surely, this great variety makes Buzz Launcher the perfect option for those Android fans that want to completely alter the interface of their devices trouble-free.

Buzz Launcher

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.buzzpia.aqua.launcher

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Clocking in at around 1MB in size, Hola Launcher aims at being as small and lightweight as possible while providing users with all the substantia features that each and every launcher should bring to the table. The unique features of Hola are Hola Swipe, an easy way to see your recent apps, Hola Box, which allows you to easily hide apps and folders, and, of course, numerous customization options.

Hola Launcher

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kk.launcher

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This one is as minimilast and dead-simple as possible, quickly becoming a favorite of ours. It also features some slick animations while holding its ground in terms of snappiness, warranting a pleasant experience. Simplicity is ensured by the simplistic setup - you get one home screen with a nifty spotlight search. Your apps and widgets are neatly tucked in a slide-out drawer positioned on the left side of the screen. That's pretty much it. You can change the icon pack for the whole launcher and also select different icons for the different apps you might have. Oh, the home screen layout is also customizable.

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A few other notable launchers for Android

1. Evie

This one is as minimilast and dead-simple as possible, quickly becoming a favorite of ours. It also features some slick animations while holding its ground in terms of snappiness, warranting a pleasant experience. Simplicity is ensured by the simplistic setup - you get one home screen with a nifty spotlight search. Your apps and widgets are neatly tucked in a slide-out drawer positioned on the left side of the screen. That's pretty much it. You can change the icon pack for the whole launcher and also select different icons for the different apps you might have. Oh, the home screen layout is also customizable.

2. Z Launcher by Nokia

It might be lacking in the feature department, but Nokia's Z Launcher is a pretty easy-to-use home screen replacement. Just write the first letter of the app you want to launch and Z Launcher will comply. Nokia's launcher is a contextual one, which means that it keeps tabs on your day-to-day "app" habits and tries to suggest the relevant apps at the correct time. It's as straightforward as it gets, and just recently scored support for custom icon packs.

3. ap15

Oh, we love the simplicity of this one! We know it might sound like a good ol' cliche, but ap15 redefines that whole "Android launcher" thingy. It's a text-based launcher that displays all of your apps on the screen -- so simple, yet so efficient. The more you open a given app, the larger its text entry becomes, which lets you access your favorite apps more easily. You can customize the font of the text entries, as well as their size, color, and opacity; you can do so for all text entries or for individual apps only. The background is also changeable. All in all, an intriguing minimalistic app that is different than everything else out there.

4. Smart Launcher 3

This is one of the more curious yet still functional Android launchers we've seen of . The signature feature of Smart Launcher are the so-called "bubbles" - a circular dial of several apps that are neatly positioned on your home screen. Its app drawer, which can be accessed by swiping right, sorts your apps in several tabs - Media, Internet, Utilities, Games, etc. One of the few downsides of the launcher is that it doesn't support widgets - if you are a fan of these, you'll have to purchase Smart Launcher Pro 2.

5. Action Launcher 3

Chris Lacy's Action Launcher 3 is a total overhaul of Action Launcher 2, and lo and behold, it now boasts most of Pixel Launcher's lucrative new features, like swipe dock up to fire up your app drawer and the new outline folder previews. Action Launcher was popular for not having a regular app drawer for a long time - swiping your home screen right will take you to an alphabetical list with all of your apps. Well, you can now access your app drawer by either swiping your dock up or swiping the homescreen right, which is a bit confusing.

Meanwhile, Action Launcher 3 is strikingly light and smooth - interface lag and hiccups will probably be seen as scarce as hen's teeth. It also has a killer feature - thanks to Covers, users can interact with app icons in whole new way: tapping the icon will launch the app in question, but swiping the icon will open a folder. Nifty.

6. Yahoo Aviate Launcher

After a long period of being in beta and an eventual acquisition by Yahoo, the contextual Aviate Launcher has been available for all Android users since mid-June. It takes into consideration certain factors and will dynamically change the apps and links on your home screen. When you wake up, for example, you'll be treated to some news and weather information; when you arrive at the office Aviate will show you productivity apps; when the launcher finds out that you are driving on the, say, highway, it can bump music and navigation apps on your home screen. Neat indeed.

7. Buzz Launcher

The most prominent feature of Buzz Launcher is that it allows its users to download complete home screen setups. Don't confuse thеsе with themes - apart from coming with their own icon sets and wallpapers, these setups also rock their own layouts. Thus, almost each and every home screen setup has a completely different look and feel. Users can also create their own setups and share them. Surely, this great variety makes Buzz Launcher the perfect option for those Android fans that want to completely alter the interface of their devices trouble-free.

8. Hola Launcher

Clocking in at around 1MB in size, Hola Launcher aims at being as small and lightweight as possible while providing users with all the substantia features that each and every launcher should bring to the table. The unique features of Hola are Hola Swipe, an easy way to see your recent apps, Hola Box, which allows you to easily hide apps and folders, and, of course, numerous customization options.