Updated August 2026 · every figure re-read on 21 August 2026, and the comparison table's second column rebuilt around whether each entry is still shipping
Four Android home screen launchers: three with their own Google Play listing and one published through F-Droid, a catalogue that carries a different and much smaller set of fields. Checked 21 August 2026 against each source named in its section · full breakdown below.
Niagara Launcher is our best overall and best free pick because its listing, read 3 September 2026, rates 4.8, no ads label, free with purchases $0.99 to $74.99 per item.
Smart Launcher 6 is our privacy pick because its listing, read 3 September 2026, is free with purchases, no ads label, declares no third-party sharing, though data cannot be deleted.
Kvaesitso is our open source pick because its F-Droid entry, read 21 August 2026, publishes GPL-3.0-or-later, an Anti-Feature, no price or ads label.
Data checked: 3 September 2026.
The monthly umbrella for this series is best new apps for Android, where every entry is dated by its own Play release field.
One fact decides what any of these four can actually do, and it is on none of the four listings. A launcher is the app that owns the home activity: Google's own reference for Intent.CATEGORY_HOME, read 21 August 2026, defines it as This is the home activity, that is the first activity that is displayed when the device boots.
Which app holds that activity has always been your choice rather than the app's, and since Android 10 the system expresses that choice as a role. Google's RoleManager reference, read 21 August 2026, lists ROLE_HOME, added in API level 29, as The name of the home role.
and describes its createRequestRoleIntent method as returning an Intent that prompts the user to grant a role to this application
.
So none of these four can install itself over your home screen. It declares that it can be a home app, the system asks you, and the answer stays yours: the same reference says an application will need user consent to become a role holder
. What it does not say is that the role costs nothing. It adds, in the next paragraph of the same class summary, Upon becoming a role holder, the application may be granted certain privileges that are role specific. When the application loses its role, these privileges will also be revoked.
So what the system asks for is a role rather than a runtime permission of the kind the camera or your location brings up, but a home app is not an ordinary app either, and what the role grants it takes back when the role moves. The mechanics of switching back and forth are a separate job, covered in our guide to changing the default launcher on Android. What that role does not settle is anything about price, advertising or data, which is what the rest of this page is for.
People already set up on Nova, if the ads label is acceptable
100,000,000+ installs · Free to install · In-app purchases $0.99 to $99.99 per item · Developer entry: Instabridge Sweden AB · Category: Tools · Listing updated 18 August 2026 · Contains ads: Yes · checked 2 September 2026
Google Play listing · 3.4 (1,383,872) · read 2 September 2026
Nova Launcher is the incumbent here, and its own listing is the reason to look twice before staying: 3.4 from 1,383,872 reviews, the lowest rating of the three Play listings on this page, with the Contains ads label on the listing itself. It is free to install, with in-app purchases $0.99 to $99.99 per item. Google Play shows the listing updated 18 August 2026, and that date is the only dated evidence of maintenance this page has for it: no page we could read on novalauncher.com that day publishes dated release notes, so nothing we could read outside the store corroborates the release cadence.
The developer's own site sells an ad-free upgrade, a paid subscription or lifetime purchase sitting over a listing that carries the ads label. novalauncher.com, read 21 August 2026, states the terms plainly: Nova Launcher is free to install. If you want access to all features and an ad-free experience, Nova Launcher Prime is available as a yearly subscription or lifetime purchase.
That is the listing's ads label and its in-app purchase range described from the seller's side, and it is the closest thing to a release statement on any page we could read there. Choose Nova Launcher over the other two if you already have a Nova layout you would rather not rebuild. Choose either of them over Nova if the ads label is what decides it. Skip it if you want a Play listing with no such label at all.
The highest rated Play listing here, with no ads label on it
10,000,000+ installs · Free to install · In-app purchases $0.99 to $74.99 per item · Developer entry: Mellowdrop Studio · Category: Personalization · Listing updated 20 August 2026 · Contains ads: No · checked 2 September 2026
Google Play listing · 4.8 (226,470) · read 2 September 2026
Niagara Launcher rates 4.8, the highest rating here, with no ads label but a Data Safety section declaring that the app may share these data types with third parties. That is 4.8 from 226,470 reviews, the highest rating of the three Play listings on this page, and that sharing declaration is exactly the incumbent's. It is free to install, with in-app purchases $0.99 to $74.99 per item. Both sources say it is shipping: Google Play shows the listing updated 20 August 2026, while away from the store the newest dated post on its own blog is 31 July 2026, and a studio post of 16 July 2026 says the team is still improving the launcher with every update.
The studio behind it publishes how it is funded, which is the nearest thing to a source for the missing ads label. Its post of 16 July 2026 on niagaralauncher.com, read 21 August 2026, says: because we answer to no investors, we get to keep it 100% free of ads, even in the free version, with no data selling and no dark patterns
. Sharing is not selling, and the same listing's Data Safety section still declares that the app may share these data types with third parties, so the two statements are printed side by side here rather than reconciled. The post also claims a rating of 4.8 stars on Google Play, where the listing read on 21 August 2026 gives 4.8. The two are the same number read to different precision: the listing's own structured data gives 4.79 to two decimal places on 21 August 2026, which rounds to 4.8 and truncates to 4.7, and the post carries the earlier date of the two. Choose Niagara Launcher over Smart Launcher 6 if the rating and the absent ads label are what decide it, and the other way round if the sharing declaration matters more. Skip it if the size of the install base is part of what you are buying.
The one Play listing here that declares no data shared with third parties
50,000,000+ installs · Free to install · In-app purchases $0.49 to $29.99 per item · Developer entry: Smart Launcher Team · Category: Personalization · Listing updated 7 August 2026 · Listing version 6.6 build 016 · Contains ads: No · checked 21 August 2026
Google Play listing · 4.6 (685,711) · read 21 August 2026
Smart Launcher 6 rates 4.6, with no ads label on its listing, and its Data Safety section lists that data cannot be deleted. That is 4.6 from 685,711 reviews, between the other two Play entries, and the deletion line is the trade for the one declaration on this page of no data shared with third parties. It is free to install, with in-app purchases $0.49 to $29.99 per item. Google Play shows the listing updated 7 August 2026 at 6.6 build 016, while the developer's own changelog dates that version series to January 2026 and carries no entry newer than it.
The developer's own changelog is where the feature set behind that version is written down, and it settles a claim this page withdrew in August for want of a source. Under Other changes, the Smart Launcher 6.6 changelog on docs.smartlauncher.net, read 21 August 2026, states: You can import backups from Nova Launcher to quickly migrate your home screen layout, icons, and basic setup into Smart Launcher.
The claim is therefore restored for this app, sourced to the developer rather than to a third party. Choose Smart Launcher 6 over Niagara Launcher if the no sharing declaration is what decides it, and the other way round if the rating is. Skip it if being able to request deletion of your data matters more.
Open source and search first, if no published rating or ads label is acceptable
Licence: GNU General Public License v3.0 or later · Current version 1.40.2-fdroid · Added to F-Droid 3 June 2026 · Anti-Feature flagged: Non-Free Network Services · F-Droid entry, read 21 August 2026
F-Droid entry · no rating and no ads label are published there · read 21 August 2026
Kvaesitso is the one of the four whose catalogue publishes a source licence: F-Droid gives GPL-3.0-or-later for it. Nothing read for the other three carries a licence field at all, so this page does not place them either way. It is also the entry where the two sources agree most closely: the project's own releases page shows version 1.40.2 published 31 May 2026 and nothing newer, and F-Droid added the matching build three days later, so the catalogue is carrying the current release rather than a stale one. Every statement in the prose here comes from that F-Droid entry and that releases page, which between them publish a summary, a licence, the current version, the date that version was added, the date the project published it and any Anti-Features. Neither publishes a rating, a review count, an install band, a price or a Contains ads label, so none of those appear above: the gaps in its row of the table are what the catalogue does not carry, not a finding about the app.
Read this first. An open licence is not a privacy promise, an ad free promise or a quality promise. It says the source can be read and redistributed. Nothing on this page can tell you what this app collects, because F-Droid publishes no Data Safety section for anything it lists.
Choose it over the three Play entries if published source code is what decides it. Choose any of them over it if you want a rating, an install band and a Data Safety declaration to weigh. Skip it if a search first home screen is not what you are after.
App uses a third party service for currency exchange rates(F-Droid entry, read 21 August 2026).
Where the two readings behind that second column disagree, the disagreement is the finding rather than something to average out. Two of the four are corroborated outside their catalogue: Smart Launcher's own changelog and the Kvaesitso releases page, both read 21 August 2026. One is corroborated by dated posts rather than release notes: the newest post on the Niagara blog is dated 31 July 2026, which is the reading the table prints, and the Mellowdrop studio post of 16 July 2026 is the older one this page quotes. And one is not corroborated at all: no page we could read on novalauncher.com on 21 August 2026 publishes dated release notes. The changelog address served a page byte for byte identical to the home page and the blog address served a page with no posts on it, so for Nova Launcher the Play listing stands alone. That is a statement about what we read, not about what exists.
None of the three Play entries here is a 2026 debut: their listings give first release years of 2012 for Nova Launcher, 2021 for Niagara Launcher and 2012 for Smart Launcher 6 (Google Play, read 21 August 2026). For Kvaesitso that question has no answer here: F-Droid publishes the date a version was added and no first release date at all, so the catalogue date on this page is 3 June 2026, when the current version was added, and that is a different measurement from a first release.
The plainest description of the fourth entry is the summary F-Droid publishes for it on its F-Droid entry, read 21 August 2026:
A search-focused, free and open source launcher for Android
The summary F-Droid publishes for Kvaesitso · f-droid.org · read 21 August 2026
Any launcher this pass could not read from a source today is named in the change log at the foot of this page rather than described here, and so are the version claims that used to sit beside those names. A figure with no source named beside it does not ship. For the wider field there is the full launcher roundup, which lists more launchers than this page does.
Nova Launcher, Niagara Launcher and Smart Launcher 6 each have their own Google Play listing, and all three were read there on 21 August 2026. For Kvaesitso the same check on the same day returned no Google Play listing for its package, so this page reads it from its F-Droid entry instead. Checked 21 August 2026.
Yes, and the way that works is Android behaviour rather than an app feature. A launcher declares the home activity, which Google's own Intent reference defines as the first activity displayed when the device boots. Since Android 10 the choice is a system role called ROLE_HOME, and Google's RoleManager reference describes the method an app uses for it as one that prompts the user to grant a role to the application. So the app asks and you decide. That same reference also says a role holder may be granted privileges that are specific to the role, and that those privileges are revoked when the app loses the role, so this is not a case of nothing changing hands; it is simply not a runtime permission prompt. Both reference pages were read on 21 August 2026. Checked 21 August 2026.
Three of the four are corroborated by two sources each, and one is not. Google Play shows the listings updated on 18 August 2026 for Nova Launcher, 20 August 2026 for Niagara Launcher and 7 August 2026 for Smart Launcher 6, and F-Droid added Kvaesitso 1.40.2-fdroid on 3 June 2026. Outside the catalogues, Smart Launcher publishes its own changelog and Kvaesitso its own releases page, and Niagara's studio posts on its own blog. No page we could read on novalauncher.com publishes dated release notes, so for Nova Launcher the store listing is the only dated evidence this page has. Checked 21 August 2026.
Its Google Play listing carries the Contains ads label, read 21 August 2026. That label is the source for the answer, and nothing here rests on running the app. The developer's own site says a paid Prime upgrade removes advertising, which is a statement about the upgrade and not about the free install. The other two Play listings on this page carry no such label. Checked 21 August 2026.
Because F-Droid publishes neither. An F-Droid entry carries a summary, a licence, the current version, the date that version was added and any Anti-Features, and it carries no rating, no review count, no install band, no price and no Contains ads label. A gap there is missing information, not a clean result, and it says nothing about whether the app shows ads. F-Droid does flag this entry with its Non-Free Network Services Anti-Feature, and that reason is quoted in its section. Checked 21 August 2026.
No. A licence says the source can be read and redistributed. It does not say what an app collects. Kvaesitso has no Data Safety section at all, because F-Droid publishes none, so this page makes no claim about what it collects. Among the three Play entries, Smart Launcher 6 is the one whose listing declares no data shared with third parties; the Nova Launcher and Niagara Launcher listings each carry a Data Safety section declaring that the app may share these data types with third parties. Checked 21 August 2026.
If the ads label is what decides it, Niagara Launcher and Smart Launcher 6 carry none on their Play listings, read 21 August 2026. If the Data Safety line matters more, Smart Launcher 6 is the one of the three Play entries that declares no sharing with third parties. If published source code matters most, Kvaesitso is the one of the four whose catalogue publishes a source licence, GPL-3.0-or-later on F-Droid, at the cost of having no published rating or install band to compare. Checked 21 August 2026.
Checked 21 August 2026: all three Play listings and the F-Droid entry were re-read today, so every rating, review count, install band, price, purchase range, ads label, Data Safety line, version and listing date carries that date. One of those figures moved: Niagara Launcher's in-app purchase range reads $0.99 to $74.99 per item on 21 August 2026, where the previous pass recorded a lower ceiling on 16 August 2026. The figure printed here is the one the listing publishes today. The comparison table's second column was headed Best for. Three of its four cells repeated, word for word, the verdict line printed under the app heading, and the fourth paraphrased its own, so the column decided nothing. It is replaced by whether the entry is still shipping, read from the catalogue for every row and, for three of the four, from a second source as well. That exposed one finding worth stating: no page we could read on novalauncher.com publishes dated release notes, so Nova Launcher rests on its store listing alone, and both addresses we read are now named and linked in its section. No app was cut. Two method sentences were. The old How we verify box said that a Play last updated date and an F-Droid version added date never share a column, and the rebuilt column does put them in one. The rule is retired in the open rather than quietly broken: the table now says the two dates measure different things, and the Kvaesitso row prints that project's own release date beside the catalogue one. The other sentence, an 18 month staleness rule, applied to nothing on this page. Two captions described our own work wrongly. The Smart Launcher caption said its six images were cropped by us to the app screen; they are promotional images from that listing and each keeps the listing's device frame, so the caption now says what they are. The Kvaesitso caption named no source and said the four shots had not been re-sourced; they are four of the six screenshots published on that F-Droid entry, re-read on 21 August 2026, so the caption names and links it, and the section says instead that the first carries an on-screen date of 2 March 2022. One alt line said that screen shows only a large clock; it also shows the search bar. Six Nova Launcher captures were rendering underneath the Niagara Launcher heading, one section below the app they show. Each gallery is now pinned to its own app. No image was added, removed or replaced. A claim withdrawn on 16 August was re-derived rather than trusted and proved half true: Smart Launcher's own changelog, read 21 August 2026, documents the Nova backup import, so it is restored and quoted in that section. The Lawnchair half of the same sentence stays withdrawn, because Lawnchair is off this page and no source was read for it today. The Kvaesitso Anti-Feature was re-derived at source rather than carried over, and it stands, quoted in F-Droid's own words. The verdict capsule was rebuilt to the ruling of 18 August 2026. It was labelled Verdict, it ran as a sentence over a bullet list, no pick in it was in the because form the ruling requires, and it closed on 16 August 2026, the date of the pass before this one. It is now labelled Our answer, and it names a best overall and best free pick, a privacy pick and an open source pick, each as one sentence carrying its own dated fact and the price and ads reality, with the fields F-Droid does not publish attributed to the catalogue rather than left as a gap that reads like a clean result. A section on what Android itself decides about a home app is new here, sourced to Google's own Intent and RoleManager references, both read 21 August 2026. It prints the reference's own sentence that a role holder may be granted role specific privileges and that those privileges are revoked when the role is lost, so the role is not described as costing nothing. The same quotations answer the question in the FAQ about setting a home screen app. Lawnchair, Neo Launcher, Hyperion Launcher, Nothing Launcher, Fossify Launcher and Octopi Launcher remain off the page from the previous rebuild and are named here only. The claims withdrawn then remain withdrawn and are named here only: Theme Studio, Wallpaper Studio, and for Kvaesitso the assertions of no ads and no tracking, of a dropped accessibility service requirement, and of being sideload only. No testing claim was withdrawn, because this page makes none. One line from the previous change log is itself withdrawn, having been checked rather than believed. It said the social card this page declares still carried July 2026 wording and named two of the claims withdrawn above. The card was read on 21 August 2026 and both counts were wrong: it is dated read 15 August 2026, names none of them, and its three figures hold. Only its date is out of step, six days behind the page, and regenerating it needs the owner.
SwiftKey vs Gboard: Which Keyboard Wins on Your Android Phone?Personalization
Best Keyboard Apps for Android: 10 Checked on Play and F-DroidPersonalization
Best Launcher Apps for AndroidPersonalization