Best Android Emulators which is the main topic of today’s poster. Surprising as it sounds, many people prefer to use Android emulators. So today we will know about Android emulators through this post. It is such a system you can enjoy various benefits by playing mobile games on your PC. And by using it, it is possible to use your mouse and keyboard for control and avoid draining your phone’s battery.
Productive people can benefit from using mobile apps on their computers for the same reason. Nowadays, emulating Android on computers has become much easier than in the past. Below, you can choose the best Android emulators for PC
As Microsoft’s native Android app support gains popularity, more people will likely choose this option, further reducing the list of emulators.
The best Android emulators for PC and Mac
1. Android Studio
2. BlueStacks
3. Bliss OS
4. Gameloop
5. LDPlayer
6. MeMU Play
7. MuMu Player
8. NoxPlaye
9. PrimeOS
10. Windows 11
Emulators in our newsletters
Our newsletters feature emulators that allow you to play your favorite Android games on your PC, debug your Android app, and more. These emulators are the best for Android.
What is the reason people use an emulator initially?
It is simply an Android emulator and has three primary purposes. The first of the purposes is mainly for gaming. Playing mobile games on a PC allows you to see things more clearly on a bigger screen. Additionally, mouse and keyboard support makes many tasks easier. Since your computer is usually plugged in, it offers unlimited battery life. So if you try to play a game while charging your phone is likely to overheat. Many dedicated mobile gamers use an Android emulator to give their phones a bit of a boost. App development is the second most popular use case and there are also some other tools.
Emulators that focus on development usually integrate an IDE with the emulator. Enables developers to code their apps, run them in emulators and fix any bugs. And Android Studio surpasses all its competitors in this regard.
It employs an Android Virtual Device (AVD) function, which enables developers to emulate specific devices. This tool helps developers test apps on different devices before launching them, resulting in fewer bugs.
The ultimate goal is productivity, although most mobile productivity tools are already accessible on a PC or Mac. Additionally, some Chromebooks are more cost-effective and efficient in managing Android apps than emulators. Still, some mobile apps are easier to use than their PC equivalents. And for that, it can provide emulator support.
1. Android Studio
App developers prefer Android Studio as the best option. Because Android Studio is an IDE that provides an emulator of Android virtual device functions. You can make any device to test your app on. Even regular people can use this emulator.
We’ve tried a few apps and they’re fine for playing games with ease. However, gaming-focused emulators offer additional keyboard support that Android Studio doesn’t have. At first, the set-up may seem a bit complicated and it may take a week or two to learn everything. But once you learn it will be much easier later on. Many developers also use it to develop the apps they use every day.
It is one of the few emulators capable of running the latest versions of Android To use it you need to create an AVD with the Play Store icon. In this space, Android Studio faces some competition from Xamarin and Genymotion.
Both Xamarin and Genymotion accomplish more or less the same task as they are IDEs with built-in emulators for app testing. The advantage of Xamarin is that it is cross-platform for both Android and iOS. ZeniMotion is famous for its scalability which allows sharding and parallel testing. Although we consider Android Studio as the top choice, there are other options in the development space.
2.BlueStacks
BlueStacks app users consider this player to be the most comprehensive Android app player in the market for good reason. BlueStacks runs on both Windows and Mac and offers plenty of features to enhance gamers’ experience.
When it comes to productivity and end-use, most mobile tools are already available on a PC or Mac, making them less common. However, using an emulator can actually help, as some mobile apps are easier to use than their PC counterparts.
Many users know BlueStacks as the most comprehensive Android app player in the market, and there’s a good reason for it. BlueStacks runs on both Windows and Mac, and it offers a ton of features to enhance the gamer’s experience. The emulator is jam-packed with these features.
BlueStacks offers several popular features, such as the Keymapping Tool which enables users to create customized control schemes. The Instance Manager allows users to create multiple emulator instances and run multiple games simultaneously. BlueStacks also ensures data safety with certified GDPR compliance.
The latest version of the emulator, BlueStacks 5, is the lightest and fastest version ever. Delivers high-performance gaming even on low-end devices. This latest release addresses common complaints of previous versions, such as feeling bloated, especially on low-end hardware. Give it a try and see why BlueStacks has a community of over 500 million gamers worldwide!
3. Bliss OS
Bliss OS has progressed significantly since it was initially on this list. It undoubtedly stands as one of the best emulators. You can use it in three distinct ways. First, choose a live boot option and boot it from a flash drive. Second, install it as a partition on your PC and boot it into Bliss OS directly. Finally, install it using a virtual machine. Go here to access all installation procedures.
It also has the convenience of using Bliss and at the time of writing, the stable version of Bliss is running Android 9. Bliss enables you to play most of the latest games and use almost every available app. The team is currently working on Android 11 and is also working on Android 12. Most of the emulators on this list are older than these versions.
Bliss proves to be a fairly versatile option if you manage to install it successfully. It generally works well, although it may occasionally encounter some bugs. We do not consider this to be a significant problem. That it lacks some of the more gamer-focused features found in competitors like Knox and Bluestacks. Bliss also offers the option to include Google apps if desired. We appreciate that Bliss is both free and open source.
4. GameLoop
Our second entrant for gamers is GameLoop, which Tencent, the developers of several popular mobile games like PUBG: Mobile, actually built. You can get into this one in just a few minutes because the installation process is simple. Once you install it, you can play a variety of games or use a variety of apps. We tested TikTok, Call of Duty: Mobile, and a few other titles, and everything worked fine. GameLoop doesn’t come with Google Play stock, but it downloads the components if you need to download something from there.
We experienced some hiccups during our testing. We tried to download certain files a few times and got some errors. However, this emulator does not use VT like others. And offers some unique features for officially supported games like Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG: Mobile It’s actually pretty good if the emulator supports the games you like. It works for many other things, but some of them can be challenging to install and use.
5. LDPlayer 9
LDPlayer 9 is an emulator focused on gamers, but it also allows other applications to run. Setting it up is as easy as GameLoop; Download, install, open, set up, and start using it. It ran more smoothly than many other options on our AMD-powered PC with an ultrawide monitor. And it has fewer bugs than some competitors, though it’s not always perfect.
LDPlayer’s additional features make it enjoyable to use. It offers a toolbar on the right side of the window that enables quick access to tools like taking screenshots, recording videos, and setting up keyboard mappings. We tested half a dozen games, and they all ran smoothly. Although some of them required a few attempts to launch
LDPlayer is free, runs smoothly, and offers enough additional features to make it a great choice in this category. LDPlayer 9 uses Android 9, which is good enough to run almost anything.
6. MeMU Play
MeMU Play is one of the oldest emulators on the list that has been actively developed and has been relevant for years. It is among the best Android emulators available According to the settings menu, it runs Android 7.1.2, a relatively recent version of Android. MeMU Play installation is quick and painless making another advantage.
Additionally, MeMU Play offers several exciting features. Allows running multiple instances locally if you’re interested. You can use the key-map function to bind your mouse and keyboard to mobile games for unlimited gameplay. We especially like the shared downloads folder that enables file sharing between MeMU Play and Windows.
Performance-wise it performed well and ran our test games without any issues. We also managed to install the apps and use them seamlessly. MeMU Play resembles LDPlayer both in appearance and functionality. So you can use them interchangeably based on your requirements.
7. MuMu Player
Netease, the developer of popular mobile games like Onmyoji and Vikingard, developed MuMu Player. It is said to be a gaming-focused emulator and MuMu Player runs on Android 6 as its primary version. However, a beta version is currently being tested for both Android 9 and Android 11 MuMu Nebula is a lightweight version of the emulator that can be used on low-end PCs To install MuMu Player, simply download the file and install it. With a little setup, the installation process takes about five to ten minutes.
There is a Toolbar located at the bottom of the MuMu Player app. This toolbar works almost identically to the ones found in LDPlayer and MeMU Play. Users can use this toolbar to perform various tasks, such as installing APKs, taking screenshots, recording videos, and configuring key mapping. Additionally, gamepad support is available otherwise, it works like any other emulator. Where you can log in to Google Play, download your games, and play them
We did not face any issues with this emulator. Its UI and controls closely resemble those of MeMU and LDPlayer. So that users of both emulators can quickly adapt to it.
We suspect it runs on Android 7, but the emulator doesn’t allow traditional access to settings for verification. It ran our test games successfully without complaint and competes in terms of additional features.
8. NoxPlayer
NoxPlayer, which is still popular today, is known as an original Android emulator. The developers have done a good job keeping up with Android 9, the version it currently runs.
To install NoxPlayer, you just need to make sure you decline any optional offers. Once installed, you can log in to Google Play and start using the emulator.
NoxPlayer is one of the pioneers in features like keyboard mapping. The toolbar on the right side of the window is now standard practice. Also, you can take screenshots, record videos, and perform other tasks. Our testing showed that NoxPlayer handled our test games well without any major issues.
While the main NoxPlayer still runs Android 7.1, there is a beta version available for Android 9. There is also a Mac version, which makes it one of the best options for Mac users It is free to download and use. And it’s generally quite stable, competing favorably with LDPlayer, MeMU, and other similar emulators.
9. PrimeOS
PrimeOS is similar to Bliss OS in terms of functionality. You must install it as a partition on your hard drive and boot into it. The installation process is a bit more complicated. But you can use an installer EXE provided by PrimeOS to create a partition and install it. When the installation is complete, you need to reboot your machine and select PrimeOS as the boot option.
After that, you will get the same interface and user experience as Bliss OS. You get access to a fully Android-powered desktop. And you can install Google Play to use almost all Android apps. PrimeOS offers some unique features for gamers, such as keyboard and gamepad support, script recording, and more. During our testing, we encountered a few issues while playing the game. But this could be due to the old hardware of the test PC.
The stable version of PrimeOS supports Android 7. While the Android 11 build has the beta version available, it is one of the newer versions. However, the beta version may contain more bugs and issues. PrimeOS is a free operating system. The only suggestion is to prepare to learn about partitions, but it works well otherwise.
10. Windows 11
Windows 11 offers a notable feature that enables it to run Android apps. Like all the other solutions on this list, it uses virtualization. However, Microsoft includes tools for this natively in Windows 11’s settings. To use this feature, you only need to visit the Microsoft Store. Amazon Appstore has to download and Windows 11 will display a tutorial to help you with the rest.
Amazon’s Appstore offers apps, but it can’t compete with Google Play in terms of quality. You can find some popular apps here and there and they worked well during our testing. However, we expect that functionality to improve over time. The best part is that Amazon Appstore is easy to download and requires no weird installation or download. You just need to download Amazon Appstore, open it, and run your apps.
There is a way to install Google Play, but currently, it is not very stable so we recommend waiting. Still, Google Play Games support on PC is in open beta and gaining momentum. Once Google Play fully supports Windows 11, we believe that no emulator will be good unless you need power-user tools like key mapping.
(FAQ) Frequently Asked Questions
Which Android emulator is fastest?
Gamers love BlueStacks for its ease of setup and use. As well as common functionality such as screen recording and debugging. The mobile gaming market considers the BlueStacks Android emulator as the oldest and most popular. It is easy to install, run and play games.
Is NOX better than BlueStacks?
Nox weighs 100 MB less than BlueStacks, making it significantly lighter. Despite its smaller size and memory requirements, Nox offers some of BlueStacks’ most useful features. For instance, Nox enables keyboard and controller mappings just like BlueStacks.
Which Android emulator is the lightest?
Droid4x and MEmu Play enable users to play multiple games concurrently while being the most lightweight Android emulators. If you desire exceptional customization features, Droid4x outperforms by providing key and GPS simulation.
How do Android Emulators Work?
Android Emulators rely on platform virtualization to handle hardware and software. You can set up and configure virtual Android devices using the AVD manager (Android Virtual Device).
