15 best Android emulators for PC and Mac of 2020 - Android

We talk a lot about emulating computer experiences on our phones. Let's look at the best Android emulators!

There are a lot of valid reasons why someone would want to run Android emulators on their PC. App developers may be trying to test their application before shipping it out. Gamers may want to use a mouse and keyboard on their games. Maybe you just want it there to have it. In any case, Android emulation on PC is possible and it’s a lot easier than it used to be. Some old favorites either left the space or become unusable (Andy, AmiduOS, and Leapdroid), but everything else here should work okay for most people. Here are the best Android emulators for PC and Mac.

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The three main uses for Android emulator

There are three main uses for emulators. The first is the most common and it’s for gaming. Gamers can use emulators on their computers to make some games easier to play. They don’t have to rely on the battery life of their devices and the existence of macros and other tricks help the process. In most cases, these little tricks aren’t illegal (in most games) so nobody really has a problem with it. The best Android emulators for gaming include LDPlayer, Bluestacks, MeMu, KoPlayer, and Nox.

The second most common use case is development. Android app and game developers like to test apps and games on as many devices a possible before launch. Usually the Android Studio emulator is fine for this kind of work. However, Xamarin and Genymotion are excellent for this type of use as well.

The final main type is productivity. This isn’t nearly as common because Chromebooks are cheaper and better for using Android apps on something other than a phone and most productivity tools are cross-platform. Any gaming emulator works as a productivity emulator to an extent. However, those with hyper specific use cases and a little knowledge can try ARChon and Bliss. Even so, in this day and age, we recommend going the Chromebook route if you want to run Android apps in a laptop or computer environment. It’s better that way.

Finally, a bit of a disclaimer. At this time, no emulators run the latest versions of Android except for ones made for developers. Luckily, most apps and games still function on older versions of Android so this shouldn’t be a big deal. However, most emulators right now run anywhere between Android 7.0 Nougat and Android 9.0 Pie. 

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_PROMOTED

LDPlayer

Price: Free

LDPlayer is an Android emulator for gamers, running Android Nougat 7.1. It features the usual array of gamer-oriented features, including good keyboard mapping controls, multi-instance, macros, high FPS, and graphical support. This is one of the few emulators on the list that gets active updates nearly every month. It supports a wide range of games, including Garena Free Fire, Clash of Clans, Black Desert Mobile, and many others. In the latest versions, LDPlayer has optimized the performance of Free Fire to make it much easier to pull off the auto headshot, which has made it a growing favorite among Free Fire players.

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Android Studio’s emulator

Price: Free

Android Studio is the default development console for Android. It comes with a bunch of tools to help developers make apps and games specifically for Android. As it turns out, there is also a built-in emulator that you can use to test out your app or game. The setup is rather complicated and it can take a long time. Thus, it’s not one we would recommend for consumer level use. However, developers can simply use this tool as their emulator for testing their apps. It also supports Kotlin in case developers want to try that out. It’s too much of a pain for non-developer use because it takes so long to set up, but it works wonderfully for developers.

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ARChon

Price: Free

ARChon isn’t a traditional emulator. You install it as a Google Chrome extension. It then gives Chrome the ability to run Android apps and games (albeit with limited support). It’s not an easy emulator to get running. You’ll have to install the thing to Chrome. From there, you have to obtain APKs and load them in. As an added rub, you may need to use a tool to change the APK in order to make it compatible. There are a lot more steps to make this work than most other Android emulators for PC. On the plus side, though, it works with any operating system that can run an instance of Chrome (Mac OS, Linux, Windows, etc). We linked to the official GitHub where you can find detailed instructions for its use.

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Bliss OS

Price: Free / Optional donations

Bliss is something a little bit different. It works as an Android emulator for PC via virtual machine. However, it can also just flat run on your computer through a USB stick. The boot-from-USB option is definitely a power user option and not recommended for less intense use cases. As a VM install, the process is easy, but tedious if you’ve never made your own virtual machine before. The USB installation method is even more complicated, but it lets your computer actually run Android natively from boot. That makes Bliss a super unique emulator if you can make it through the steps to the end. Of course, it only really runs well if your system is compatible so be prepared with a backup of your current operating system. The system runs Android Oreo and that’s among the newer versions of Android offered on an emulator. You can also find more info about this on its XDA-Developers thread here.

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Bluestacks

Price: Free / $2 per month

Bluestacks is the most mainstream of all Android emulators. There are several reasons for that. For starters, it’s compatible with Windows and Mac. It was also one of the first that worked really well that still gets regular updates. The emulator targets mobile gamers. There is a stigma with Bluestacks because it can feel a little bloated at times. Bluestacks 4 (launched in 2018) aimed to fix that with mixed results. It also includes key-mapping and settings for many games installed. That should help make things much easier. It’s one of the heaviest emulators on the list. However, it also has the most features for better or for worse. Bluestacks also made the MSI App Player, another excellent emulator that some believe works better than vanilla Bluestacks. You can try either one, they are both by Bluestacks.

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GameLoop

Price: Free

GameLoop, formerly known as Tencent Gaming Buddy, is an Android emulator for gamers. In fact, it’s good enough that Tencent calls it the official emulator for its games, including Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG Mobile. Of course, it features other games aside from Tencent’s, although its collection isn’t as big as it could be. The emulator downloaded and installed fine and the games we tested ran just fine. This one is not good for productivity or developmental testing. However, if you have an itch for mobile FPS gaming along with some titles, this is actually a fairly decent gaming emulator and it boasts a good collection of newer titles. Plus, the keyboard controls and performance is good.