Emulating Android on a computer has never been easier, and with the increasing popularity of Android apps, it’s not surprising that many p...
Emulating Android on a computer has never been easier, and with the increasing popularity of Android apps, it’s not surprising that many people are looking for the best Android emulators for games, productivity, or app development. To help you find the right option for you, we’ve compiled this list of the best Android emulators for PC and Mac that are currently available.
The best Android emulators for PC and Mac
BlueStacks
Price: Free
BlueStacks by now.gg is known by many users to be the most comprehensive Android app player in the market, and with good reason. Aside from running on both Windows and Mac, this emulator comes jam-packed with a ton of features to improve the gamer’s experience.
ts most popular features include the Keymapping Tool to create customized control schemes, the Instance Manager through which you can create multiple instances of the emulator and run several games simultaneously, and quality-of-life features like Eco Mode, which help to reduce resource consumption while running the most demanding games. It’s also the safest emulator out there, with certified GDPR compliance — your data is always safe with them.
Its latest version BlueStacks 5 is the lightest and fastest version of the emulator to date, ensuring high-performance gaming even on low-end devices. The latest version addresses some of the most common complaints of the previous version — namely, the fact that it can feel bloated, especially when running on inferior hardware. In recent times, BlueStacks is breaking new ground and has also evolved into a cloud gaming platform, providing gamers with the freedom to try mobile games on PC instantly before installing them. If you find a game you love, seamlessly continue playing on the cloud or choose to install it—it’s effortlessly intuitive. Try it right now for yourself and discover why BlueStacks has a community of over 500 million gamers around the world!
Android Studio
Price: Free
Android Studio is the best Android emulator for app developers. Technically, Android Studio is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment). It comes with an emulator via the Android Virtual Device function. You can create nearly any device you want and use it to test your app. Regular people can also use this as an emulator, and performance isn’t half bad once you get through the setup. We played some games and used some apps without much difficulty. That said, it doesn’t have the extra support for keyboards that gaming-focused emulators have.
Setup is a bit complicated at first, and using everything may require a week or two of learning. However, after that, this is a solid overall product, and many developers use it to develop apps you use every day. It’s also one of the few emulators capable of running the latest versions of Android. It comes with the Play Store, but you have to build an AVD with the Play Store icon to use it.
Android Studio does have some competition in this space. Xamarin and Genymotion both perform more or less the same task. They are IDEs with built-in emulators so you can test your apps out. Xamarin is good because it’s cross-platform between Android and iOS. Genymotion’s big claim to fame is its scalability which allows for sharding and parallel testing. We think Android Studio is the best, but you have options in the development space.
Bliss OS
Price: Free
Bliss OS has come a long way since it first made an appearance on this list, and today it’s one of the best Android emulators out there. There are three different ways to use it. The first is a live boot option where you boot it off of a flash drive. Secondly, you can install it as a partition on your PC and boot it directly into Bliss OS. Finally, you can install it via a virtual machine, though the site lists additional installation options. We recommend the flash drive or full boot method for most users.
There are two versions as of writing: one using Android 11 and one using Android 12L. That’s newer than most of the other Android emulators on this list. That should allow you to play most, if not all, of the most recent games and apps available.
In other words, if you can get through the installation, Bliss is a fairly versatile option. It can be buggy on occasion, but otherwise, it works well. The only thing it lacks is some of the more gamer-centric features of competitors like Bluestacks, Nox, and others, so there are better options for gamers. It does come with Google apps if you prefer. Bliss is also free and open-source, which is a huge plus.
GameLoop
Price: Free
GameLoop is another great way to play Android games on PC. It used to be called Tencent Gaming Buddy after its parent company Tencent, developers of several popular mobile games like PUBG: Mobile. The installation process is simple, so you can get into this one in just a few minutes. Once installed, you can play a variety of games or use a variety of apps. We tested TikTok, PUBG: Mobile, Call of Duty: Mobile, and a few other titles. Everything worked fine. It doesn’t come with Google Play stock, but GameLoop downloads the components if you need to download an app from there.
There were some hiccups in our testing. Some stuff took a couple of attempts to download, and we had to check out a few errors here and there. Still, this doesn’t use VT like most others and has some interesting extras for officially supported games like Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG: Mobile. GameLoop doesn’t make it clear which version of Android it’s running, but it’s at least a few years old. For games that doesn’t really matter, but for other uses, it might.
LDPlayer 9
Price: Free
LDPlayer is another gaming-focused emulator, but you can run other stuff on it as well. The installation is similar in ease to GameLoop. You simply download a file, install it, open it, set it up, and off you go. It’s easier to use than a lot of other entries and works smoothly on our AMD-powered PC with an ultrawide monitor. It had fewer bugs than some of its competitors, but it didn’t run perfectly 100% of the time.
What makes LDPlayer fun is its extra features. You get a toolbar on the right side of the window that lets you quickly take screenshots, record videos, set up keyboard mapping, and other tools. It also has multi-instance support for hardcore gamers. We tried about half a dozen games, and they all ran fine, even if it took a couple of tries to open a few of them.
LDPlayer is free, works smoothly, and has enough extra features to make it a good choice in this space. LDPlayer 9 runs Android 9, and that’s good enough to run almost everything. It’s also very actively updated, which can’t be said for a lot of other Android emulators.
MeMU Play
Price: Free
MeMU Play is one of the oldest Android emulators on the list. Active development has kept it relevant all these years, and it’s one of the best Android emulators you can get. The latest version runs Android 9, but it can also run Android 7.1 or Android 5 out of the box. Installation is relatively quick and painless, so that’s another point for MeMU Play.
MeMU Play also comes with a few neat perks. It has a natively-built ability to run multiple instances if you’re into that sort of thing. There is a keymap function that lets you bind your mouse and keyboard to mobile games for easier play. One of our favorites is the ability to share files between MeMU Play and Windows using the shared download folder.
In terms of performance, it played our test games just fine. We were even able to install apps and use those as well. MeMU Play looks and acts a lot like LDPlayer, so you can probably use either one interchangeably, depending on your needs.
MuMu Player
Price: Free
MuMu Player is another gaming-focused emulator from NetEase, a developer of many popular mobile games like Onmyoji, Vikingard, and others. The latest beta version runs Android 9, and the previous stable version runs Android 6. There is also MuMu Nebula, which is a lighter version that you can use with low-end PCs. Installation is as easy as downloading a file and installing it. It should only take about five to ten minutes.
MuMu Player has a toolbar across the bottom of the app that works almost identically to LDPlayer and MeMU Play. You can install APKs, take screenshots, record videos, and map keys. This one also has good PC gamepad support. Otherwise, it works like any other emulator. You log into Google Play, download your games, and play them.
We didn’t have any problems with this one. The UI and controls are very similar to MeMU and LDPlayer, so if you’ve used one, you’ll be able to get used to this one pretty quickly. It ran our test games without complaint, and it keeps up in terms of extra features.
NoxPlayer
Price: Free
NoxPlayer was one of the original Android emulators and it’s still quite popular today. It runs Android 9 in the stable version and Android 12 in the beta version as of writing, so the developers have done a decent job keeping it modern. The installation process is easy. Just make sure you reject the optional offers. Once set up, you just log into Google Play and start doing your thing.
NoxPlayer was among the first to have things like keyboard mapping. You’ll recognize the toolbar along the right side of the window, as it is a fairly standard feature in other Android emulators these days. You can also take screenshots, record videos, and do some other stuff. In our testing, Nox handled our test games without much complaint.
The main NoxPlayer still runs Android 9 for the best stable performance, but the Android 12 beta is better for more graphically-intensive games. There is also a version for Mac, which makes this among the best Android emulators for Mac users. It’s also free to download and use. It’s pretty stable overall, and it competes favorably with the likes of LDPlayer, MeMU, and others.
PrimeOS
Price: Free
PrimeOS is like Bliss OS. You install this one as a partition on your hard drive and boot into it. That makes installation a bit more complicated, but PrimeOS has an installer EXE that’ll help create a partition and install it for you, so it’s not horrible to do. Once installed, you reboot your machine and opt to boot into PrimeOS instead.
From there, it works and feels a lot like Bliss OS. You have a full Android-powered desktop. You can get Google Play as well, so it supports almost everything. There are also some extra features for gamers, like keyboard and gamepad support, script recording, and more. It played our test games with a few issues, but it may be related to my test PC running on older hardware.
The stable version of PrimeOS runs Android 7. There are betas available for Android 11 builds as well. However, as it is a beta, there are likely more bugs and issues with that version. It’s otherwise free. The only advice we have is to be ready to learn a bit about how partitions work, but otherwise, it works fine.
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