Where to promote an Android app: subreddits, open-source stores, catalogs and Google Play's own rules

The free places to promote an Android app are few, and several of them are subreddits. r/droidappshowcase takes finished apps under a Promo, Giveaway or Feedback flair. r/apps takes Android and iOS apps as long as the download link goes to Google Play or the App Store. r/AppHookup takes real price drops. Outside Reddit, App Rater lists Android apps for free, and if your app is open source, F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid are catalogs built for it. They take open-source apps only.

The first places you'll meet are for testers, not promotion. Google Play makes new personal developer accounts run a closed test with at least 12 testers for 14 days before an app can go live, and r/AndroidClosedTesting and r/TestersCommunity exist so developers can find those testers. This guide covers each place as its own pages state it, read on 30 September and 2 October 2026, and Google's own rules, read on 2 October 2026. We don't measure the downloads a post brings, and we take no money from the places we list.

01The short list

Each place with its kind, its cost where it states one, and the date of our last check. Subreddits show the date we tried, because Reddit blocks our checker; their rules are below.

02Before launch: Google Play's tester rule

If you opened a personal Google Play developer account after 13 November 2023, you can't publish straight to production. Google's testing requirements page (opens in a new tab), as we read it on 2 October 2026:

Developers with personal accounts created after November 13, 2023, must run a closed test for their app with a minimum of 12 testers who have been opted in continuously for at least 14 days.

Then you apply for production access from the Play Console dashboard and answer questions about the test. Google asks "Whether testers used all available app features" and "Whether tester usage matched expected production user behavior", and it asks you to "Summarize the feedback received from testers and describe how feedback was collected."

Google's own advice on finding testers starts close to home: "The most common way to recruit testers is to use personal and professional networks." It adds: "Connect with communities where potential users exist to recruit active testers."

These subreddits on our list exist for this step:

• r/AndroidClosedTesting: "A sub for Android developers to post Play Store links for testing." Its description promises "people who can provide testing for testing, in order to pass your Google Play Console 20 testers policy." Google's page says 12 now. Go by Google's number, not the subreddit's.
• r/TestersCommunity: "This is a community specifically created to help developers with android closed testing of google play store." It asks for a post with your app's description, its Play Store test link and the kind of feedback you want, and you add the community's Google group as testers.

Both work as swaps: you test other developers' apps, they test yours. That gets you to the number. It doesn't get you users, and the production-access questions ask how testers used the app and what they told you, which a swap may not answer well. Use these next to people who'd really use the app, and don't post your launch there.

03Google Play's own featuring

Apple lets any developer nominate an app for App Store featuring (how that works). Google Play's page on getting featured (opens in a new tab), read on 2 October 2026, offers no such form for a free app. It sets a bar instead: "Your app or game must be good quality to be eligible for increased discovery on Google Play, and great quality to be eligible for featuring." Great apps, it says, "exceed expectations in some or all of the four pillars of app quality: core value, user experience, technical quality, and privacy and security." Your store assets count as well: "Your marketing assets must also meet a high standard for your app or game to be eligible for increased discovery or featuring."

The one nomination form on that page is for paid apps and games: "If you would like your premium title to be considered for featured placement please submit your promotional details through the link below." The editors weigh "app quality, historical performance, and the depth of the proposed discount." In our reading, the form is for a paid app planning a sale. For a free app, the store listing is the part you control.

04Subreddits that take a finished Android app

• r/droidappshowcase is the Android showcase: post with a Promo, Giveaway or Feedback flair. Its rule is quoted in full in subreddits for founders.
• r/apps calls itself "The universal subreddit for anything application related." Makers post Android and iOS apps there, under one hard rule in its feed: "Links to download apps on any site other than the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store are no longer allowed." In our reading, link the Play Store listing, not your site or an APK.
• r/AppHookup takes price drops on any platform, Android included; see its rule.

A launch discount fits r/AppHookup; an app at its usual price doesn't. How Reddit's own rules on spam apply to all of these is in how to promote a startup on Reddit.

05F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid: open-source apps only

F-Droid is "the app distribution ecosystem for Android where your user freedom comes first." It's a catalog of free and open-source Android apps, and it takes nothing else: "All applications in the repository must be Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) – for example, released under a GPL or Apache license." It checks each app by building it: "Every effort is made to verify that this is the case, both by visual inspection of the source and by building the app". Its inclusion policy (opens in a new tab), read on 2 October 2026, also turns away proprietary tracking, advertising and analytics libraries, naming Google Play Services, Firebase and Crashlytics. An app that uses them needs a build without them first. You apply by sending a merge request with your app's metadata.

IzzyOnDroid is an F-Droid-compatible repository with one difference: it ships the developer's own builds.

D200IzzyOnDroid·In their words

“Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg)”

It's open source only too ("They are provided under FOSS licenses"), and new apps are checked by hand: "These checks are performed manually on new apps before they are included with the repo, and automatically for each incoming update." You ask for inclusion on Codeberg.

If your app is closed source, skip both.

One change to watch if you distribute outside Google Play. Google's developer verification page (opens in a new tab), read on 2 October 2026, says that from 30 September 2026 "Protections begin for all users who install apps from participating stores in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand on certified devices running Android 7+", and that "Verification capability will be expanded globally for all apps on certified Android devices in 2027." Developers who distribute only outside Google Play have their own console for it, the Android Developer Console. What this means for an app in F-Droid or IzzyOnDroid is for those projects to say; read their own news before you plan around it.

06Catalogs, review sites and a newsletter

App Rater lists Android apps free, with one person working through its queue; its terms are quoted in where to promote a Mac or iOS app.

Appiod, Apps 400 and AppsThunder review Android apps among others, mostly for a fee, and belong to one group of blogs. Read app review sites before you pay two of them.

Android Weekly is a free newsletter for Android and Kotlin developers, not for the people who'd use your app. Its editors pick the links. Suggest a post about how you built the app, not the app itself.

07Put it in order

The rules above suggest an order. It's built from what each place asks, not from our own launches.

1. Closed test: at least 12 testers for 14 days if your personal account is new, from people who'd use the app first, and from the testing subreddits if you're short.
2. Production access: answer Google's questions about how testers used the app and what they said.
3. Release day: post in r/droidappshowcase with the right flair and in r/apps with the Play Store link, and submit to App Rater. One person works through App Rater's queue, so expect a wait.
4. If it's open source: F-Droid by merge request, or IzzyOnDroid on Codeberg.
5. Later: a real price drop on r/AppHookup, and Google's nomination form if it's a paid app on sale.

Add each place to My launch with the + on its poster to keep track:

Shipping on iOS too? Where to promote a Mac or iOS app covers r/iosapps, Apple's nomination form and the Apple-only catalogs.

08How we checked

The facts about each place come from its own pages, read on 29 and 30 September and 2 October 2026, and its page on the list shows the source and the day. Subreddit rules come from each subreddit's public RSS feed (its description and pinned moderator posts), because Reddit blocks our link checker; the sidebar rules weren't in it. Google's testing requirements (opens in a new tab), its featuring page (opens in a new tab), its developer verification page (opens in a new tab) and F-Droid's inclusion policy (opens in a new tab) were read on 2 October 2026. We don't measure downloads. Nobody pays to be listed or to appear in a guide. Read how we check for the details.

09Questions

01

Where can I promote my Android app for free?

On r/droidappshowcase with a Promo, Giveaway or Feedback flair; on r/apps, with a Google Play link only; on App Rater, which says listing is free; and, for open-source apps only, on F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid. Read each subreddit's sidebar before you post: we could read only its feed.

02

How many testers do I need to publish on Google Play?

If your personal developer account was created after 13 November 2023, Google's testing requirements page, as we read it on 2 October 2026, asks for a closed test with at least 12 testers opted in continuously for at least 14 days. Then you apply for production access and answer questions about the test.

03

Where can I find testers for Google Play's closed test?

Google suggests your personal and professional networks and communities where your users are. On Reddit, r/AndroidClosedTesting and r/TestersCommunity exist for it: developers swap installs of each other's apps. They're for the closed test, not for promoting your launch.

04

Can I put a closed-source app on F-Droid?

No. F-Droid's inclusion policy says every app in its repository must be free and open-source software, and it turns away proprietary tracking, ads and analytics libraries. IzzyOnDroid is also open source only.

05

How do I get my app featured on Google Play?

Google Play's featuring page sets a quality bar for featuring across core value, user experience, technical quality, and privacy and security, plus high-standard store assets. Its only nomination form is for paid apps and games, judged on quality, past performance and the size of the proposed discount.