There are a lot of valid reasons why someone would want to run Android emulators on their PC. App developers may be trying to test their application before shipping it out. Gamers may want to use a mouse and keyboard on their games. Maybe you just want it there to have it. In any case, Android emulation on PC is possible and it's a lot easier than it used to be. Some old favorites either left the space or became unusable at some point (Andy, AmiduOS, and Leapdroid), but everything else here should work okay for most people. Here are the best Android emulators for PC and Mac.
It's also worth noting that Windows may allow for Android apps directly in Windows 10 starting in 2021. This could mean big things for the Android emulator market.
The best Android emulators for PC and Mac
The three main uses for Android emulators
There are three main uses for emulators. The first is the most common and it's for gaming. Gamers can use emulators on their computers to make some games easier to play. They don't have to rely on the battery life of their devices and the existence of macros and other tricks help the process. In most cases, these little tricks aren't illegal (in most games) so nobody really has a problem with it. The best Android emulators for gaming include LDPlayer, Bluestacks, MeMu, KoPlayer, and Nox.
The second most common use case is development. Android app and game developers like to test apps and games on as many devices a possible before launch. Fortunately, Android Studio comes with the "Android Virtual Device" (AVD) which blows all other emulators out of the water in terms of performance and functionality. The only drawback for non-developers is that it comes with an installation of the space-hungry Android Studio and Android Software Development Kit (SDK). Of course, this is no problem for developers that already have all the necessary software on their machines.
The final main type is productivity. This isn't nearly as common because Chromebooks are cheaper and better for using Android apps on something other than a phone and most productivity tools are cross-platform. Any gaming emulator works as a productivity emulator to an extent. However, those with hyper-specific use cases and a little knowledge can try ARChon and Bliss. Even so, in this day and age, we recommend going with a Chromebook (with reasonably decent specs) if you want to run Android apps in a laptop or computer environment. It's better that way.
Finally, a bit of a disclaimer. At this time, no emulators run the latest versions of Android except for ones made for developers. Luckily, most apps and games still function on older versions of Android so this shouldn't be a big deal. However, most emulators right now run anywhere between Android 7.0 Nougat and Android 9.0 Pie.
PROMOTEDLD Player
Price: Free
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Bliss is something a little bit different. It works as an Android emulator for PC via virtual machine. However, it can also just flat run on your computer through a USB stick. The boot-from-USB option is definitely a power user option and not recommended for less intense use cases. As a VM install, the process is easy, but tedious if you've never made your own virtual machine before. The USB installation method is even more complicated, but it lets your computer actually run Android natively from boot. We don't recommend this one for the feint of heart. That makes Bliss a super unique emulator if you can make it through the steps to the end. Of course, it only really runs well if your system is compatible so be prepared with a backup of your current operating system. The system runs Android Oreo and that's among the newer versions of Android offered on an emulator. You can also find more info about this on its XDA-Developers thread here.
Read more:GameLoop
Price: Free
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Nox is another Android emulator for PC for gamers. That includes the usual stuff like key-mapping with your keyboard, actual controller support, and even the ability to key-map gesture controls. For instance, you can assign the function to swipe right to an arrow key and use that in a game without actual hardware controller support. It's a lot of fun and seems to work rather well most of the time. It's also entirely free and in active development, a boon in this space.
Read more:Phoenix OS
Price: Free
As it turns out, you can build your own emulator. Here's how it works in a nutshell. You need to download VirtualBox (linked above). You then have to download an image from Android-x86.org. From there, it's just a matter of finding one of the many guides online and following the steps. This is easily one of the more difficult methods, but still not quite as tedious or difficult as setting up a whole IDE like Android Studio or Xamarin. We don't recommend you try without a tutorial and a little prior knowledge. It won't work well, it'll be buggy, and unless you're a coder, it'll be difficult to fix. Still, it'll be yours to customize as you please and who knows, maybe you'll make and release an emulator that'll adorn this list someday.
If we missed any of the best Android emulators for PC, tell us about them in the comments! You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists! Here are what happened to some old classics from the list:
- Leapdroid was purchased by Google and no longer operates.
- AMIDuOS closed its doors officially on March 7th, 2018. You can still try it out, but you have to browse the official subreddit for download links.
- Andy began using some seriously not great development tactics, including suspected bitcoin mining without user permission. We don't know if it's from the third party installer or from the Andy developers so until that whole situation resolves, we're keeping it off of the list.
- Droid4x used to be one of the best options and its later builds are still available. However, it is no longer actively updated so we removed it from the list.
- KoPlayer is an outstanding Android emulator for gamers. However, the website appears to be down as of the time of this writing. If it comes back up by the time we update this piece again, we'll gladly add it back to the list.
- YouWave, a once popular option, has fallen out of favor because it runs much older versions of Android than most of its competitors. You can still get it at the link, but it's not in active development so it won't get any more updates.
- Most of the rest simply haven't been updated or in active development in years and don't really work well anymore with newer operating systems and hardware. If we missed any, let us know in the comments!