AppBrain App Market is an app that helps you manage your apps, discover the latest cool apps, and share them with your friends or other AppBrain users. This alternative App Market integrates descriptions from the Android Market and links directly to updates and downloads. Depending on the apps you download, it also creates customized recommendations.

AppBrain Tour

After installing AppBrain App Market, you are offered a tour of its features. You can later access the AppBrain Tour by selecting Help in the options menu (red). The tour covers the bare basics. Unfortunately, there is no version with screenshots optimized for tablets.

appbrain for android

Creating An Account

At the end of the six page tour you are invited to create your account to sync your apps and browse apps of other users. You can sign in using Google, Facebook, or Twitter. To sign out and sign in with a different ID, go to Preferences (red), accessible via the options menu.

appbrain market

You will also be asked to add additional information to this AppBrain account, including a custom username, your birthday, and gender.

AppBrain Overview

Once the setup process is concluded, you will reach the start page of AppBrain App Market.

appbrain market

Managing Your Apps

When you enter Manage And Sync, you will see a list of your installed apps on the left-hand side, with those that have pending changes at the top. When you click an app, its market description is shown on the right-hand side and you can also view a list of related apps. At the bottom is a row of buttons to open, share, view the market page of, or uninstall the selected app. The sync and share button on the left hand side belong to the entire list of apps.

appbrain market

You can either execute all updates at once, skip updates, choose to never update an app, or uninstall it by clicking the red X to its right on the list.

appbrain app market

On top of the app list you can switch to your App Timeline and view a chronological list of changes. By clicking the green plus next to an app, you can control whether it is public, private or completely hidden from AppBrain.

appbrain app market

Once you have downloaded a few apps using the App Market, you can see a list of recommended apps under the respective category. If you like an app, click the install button in the bottom right to be taken directly to its Android Market page from where you can download and install it.

appbrain app market

Browse Apps

This is where you can discover new apps on your own, which to me makes it the most interesting and useful section of AppBrain. You can sort apps by hot today, this week, all-time popularity, highest rated, latest, currently viewed, popularity in a country, or demographics. Moreover, you can browser apps by categories and set filters for free, paid, new, updated, price reduced, or App2SD enabled apps.

AppBrain browser apps

Your recent searches will be saved and are always accessible via the extra options button in the top right (red).

AppBrain search preferences

AppBrain Stream

The AppBrain Stream is the interactive and social part of AppBrain App Market. The stream contains a list of recent updates and recommendations from you and those you follow. From the stream you can switch to find users or see those you are following or who are following you. Options of finding users include connecting with Facebook, viewing active and popular users, searching users by name, or sharing your own app list for others to discover you.

appbrain for android

Conclusion

AppBrain App Market is a very useful tool for discovering popular and interesting apps. It provides a rich selection of options to list apps, find related ones, or simply manage already installed apps. Its social side can be interesting for those who enjoy to share with others and see what they have discovered.

Where do you get your app recommendations and where does AppBrain App Market add most value for you?