Android emulators have made everything easy. It has never been simpler to simulate Android on a computer, and with the growing popularity of Android apps, it is not unexpected that a lot of people are searching for the best Android emulators for productivity, gaming, or app creation. We have put together this list of the top Android emulators for PC and Mac that are currently on the market to assist you in selecting the best choice for you.
Android Emulators, The BlueStacks
With good reason, many people consider BlueStacks by now to be the lightest, quickest, and most complete Android app player and emulator available. In addition to being compatible with both Mac and Windows, this emulator is brimming with features that enhance the gaming experience.
Among its most popular features are the Keymapping Tool, which lets you design your own control schemes, the Instance Manager, which lets you run multiple emulator instances simultaneously, and quality-of-life features like Eco Mode, which uses less resources when playing the most taxing games. With confirmed GDPR compliance, it’s also the safest emulator available; your data is always secure with it.
Additionally, BlueStacks has been innovating. Initially, it transformed into a cloud gaming platform that allowed users to test mobile games on PCs immediately before installing them. If you discover a game you enjoy, you can install it or play it on the cloud with ease—it’s quite user-friendly.
Android Studio
The greatest Android emulator for app developers is Android Studio. Android Studio is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) in technical terms. Through the Android Virtual Device feature, an emulator is included. Almost any gadget may be made and used to test your application. Better yet, this Android emulator is compatible with ChromeOS, Linux, MacOS, and Windows.
After completing the configuration, performance isn’t too poor, and regular folks may also use this as an emulator. We had little trouble using several apps and playing some games. However, unlike emulators designed for gaming, it lacks the additional capability for macros and multi-instancing.
It takes a week or two to get used to everything, and setup is a little tricky at first. After that, though, this is a good tool in general, and many developers utilize it to create the apps you use on a daily basis. Additionally, it’s among the few emulators that can run the most recent Android versions. The Play Store is included, but in order to utilize it, you must create an AVD with the Play Store icon.
There is some competition for Android Studio in this market. Genymotion and Xamarin carry out much the same function. You may test your apps using the built-in emulators in these IDEs. Because it works with both iOS and Android, Xamarin is a good choice. The main selling point of Genymotion is its scalability, which enables parallel testing and sharding. Although there are other alternatives in the development area, we believe Android Studio to be the finest.
READ ALSO: Does Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Need a Screen Protector?
Android Emulators, Bliss OS
Since its initial debut on our list, Bliss OS has advanced to become one of the top Android emulators available. It may be used in three distinct ways. The first is the live boot option, which uses a flash drive to start the computer. Second, you may install it on your computer as a partition and start Bliss OS straight away. Finally, although the website mentions other installation choices, you may install it using a virtual computer. For the majority of users, we advise using the flash drive or full boot approach.
As of this writing, there are two versions: one running Android 11 and the other running Android 12L. Compared to the majority of the other Android emulators on our list, it is more recent. You should be able to play the majority of the newest games and applications available, if not all of them.
Put another way, Bliss is a somewhat flexible choice assuming you can successfully complete the installation. Other than the occasional problem, it functions well. There are better solutions for gamers because it lacks some of the more gamer-centric features of rivals like Bluestacks, Nox, and others. If you’d like, Google applications are included. Although Bliss is free and open-source, which is a big benefit, setting it up on a Mac takes a lot more work than on a Windows computer.
Android Emulators, The NoxPlayer
One of the first Android emulators, NoxPlayer is still widely used today. The creators have done a respectable job of keeping it up to date, since it now runs Android 9 in the stable version and Android 12 in the beta version. The installation procedure is simple. Be careful to turn down the optional offerings, though. After everything is configured, you just sign in to Google Play and get to work.
Windows 11
The ability of Windows 11 to run Android apps right out of the box is one of its greatest advantages. Like every other option on this list, it makes use of virtualization, although Microsoft has built-in capabilities for it in Windows 11. Simply download the Amazon App Store from the Microsoft Store, and Windows 11 will provide a tutorial to assist you with the remaining steps.
The GameLoop
Another fantastic method for playing Android games on a PC is GameLoop. It was once known as Tencent Gaming Buddy, after its parent firm Tencent, which created a number of well-known mobile games, including PUBG: Mobile. You can get started with this one in a matter of minutes because the installation process is straightforward. After installation, a wide range of games and apps are available for usage. Call of Duty: Mobile, PUBG: Mobile, TikTok, and a few more games were tested. Everything went smoothly. If you need to download an app from Google Play, GameLoop will get the necessary components even if it doesn’t come with Google Play stock..
A few glitches occurred throughout our testing. We had to fix a few issues here and there, and some things required a few tries to download. However, unlike most others, this does not utilize VT and offers some intriguing additions for games like Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG: Mobile which are officially supported. It’s at least a couple of years old, although GameLoop doesn’t specify which version of Android it’s running. That may not be important for games, but it may be for other purposes.
The fact that GameLoop is incompatible with MacOS is a more serious problem. It is only compatible with Windows computers at this time.