[Android Apps and Games] Skyica:
Comparison of the search features

Filters

Tools with several important filters are compared in the following table. Excluded are gaming-specific filters.

App Finder paid	App Finder free	AppAgg	AppBrain	Playsearch	Aurora Store	Play Games	Mini Review
User rating	yes cw	yes cw	o	-	-	yes u1	yes u2	-
Number of ratings / downloads	yes	yes r	o pt	-	-	yes d l	-	-
Free / paid	yes	yes	yes	yes	f rs	f	yes	yes
In-app purchases	yes	yes w	yes	-	yes w rs	-	yes	yes w
No ads	yes	yes	o	-	yes rs	yes	yes	yes
Play Pass	yes	yes	o	-	-	-	yes	-
On sale	- #	-	o	yes	-	-	-	-
Price range	yes	-	o	-	-	-	-	< $3/5
IAP price range	yes	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Update date	yes	-	o	- u	-	-	-	-
Release date	yes	-	o	- n	-	-	- n	-
Category	yes m	yes	yes	- *	yes rs	- *	yes	yes
Age rating	yes	-	o	-	-	-	-	-
Language	-	-	o	-	-	-	-	-
Min. Android, Target API	yes	-	-	-	yes a rs	-	-	-

cw Country-specific (user-specified) and world-average

m Multi-select

o As search operator

f Free only

u "updated" only

n "new" only

# Coming soon

u1 1, 2, 3, 4, 4.5, 4.7

u2 4.0, 4.2, 4.5, 4.7

r Ratings only

pt "Ponts", which is a sum of the rating count on Google Play and "AppAgg points"

d Downloads only, selected steps starting at 100

l Lower bound only

w Without only

rs Filter is applied to a maximum of 250 results, which often leads to very few or no filtered results

a Min. Android only

* Only without search query

The other tools:

The Play Store only has filters for 4 / 4.5 star rating, for paid apps, "Editor's Choice", and sometimes "Family" or Play Pass.

Aptoide has filters for none of the above. There are filters for "trusted","Beta version", "AppCoins", and "followed stores".

Amazon Appstore, Samsung Galaxy Store, Huawei AppGallery, F-Droid, Uptodown, GetJar, Rootpk have no filters.

SlideME has filters for category and tags.

APKMirror has filters for minimum Android, CPU architecture, DPI, Android Auto / Cardboard / Daydream / Android TV/ Wear OS.

The other APK services have no filters.

AppsHive has filters for category, sub-category, free/paid, "profession", and location, which however cannot be applied together with a query.

Really Free Apps and Finder+ by AppTap have no filters.

Mob.org has a category / tag filter which however cannot be applied together with a query.

TapTap has a category filter which however cannot be applied together with a query.

Analysis

Filters for user rating, number of ratings, free / paid, without in-app purchases, no ads, updated date and category are obviously so important that every app search engine should have them. Yet only App Finder and AppAgg have them all.

App Finder and AppAgg are also the only tools that can filter for apps with few ratings / downloads to discover less popular apps.

In AppAgg, search operators must be used for user rating, number of ratings, without ads, and updated date, while sliders and checkboxes would be much more convenient.

In App Finder, the update date filter is not free. However, the update date is shown directly in the results list, so that dated apps can easily be skipped if desired.

Sort options

Tools with several important systematic sort options are compared in the following table.

App Finder paid	App Finder free	AppAgg	AppBrain	Playsearch	Amazon Appstore	SlideMe	Itch	Mini Review
User rating	yes cw	yes cw	yes	yes	yes rs	yes	yes	yes	ed
Number of ratings / downloads high	yes	yes	yes pt	yes	yes rs	-	yes	yes ts	-
Number of ratings / downloads low	yes	yes	yes pt	-	yes	-	yes	-	-
Recent downloads	- #	-	-	yes	-	yes nb	yes p	yes np	-
Release date	yes	-	yes	yes n	-	yes	yes	yes	yes n
Update date	-	-	yes	-	yes rs	-	yes	-	yes n
Price	-	-	yes	-	yes rs	yes	yes	-	-

cw Country-specific (user-specified) and world-average

ed Editorial rating

rs Sort options are applied to a maximum of 250 results, so that often the top apps according to the filter are not included.

pt "Points", which is a sum of the rating count on Google Play and "AppAgg points"

# Coming soon

ts "Top sellers"

nb "New and bestselling"

p "Popularity"

np "Popular" and "new and popular"

n New to old only

The other tools:

The Play Store, Aptoide, Samsung Galaxy Store, Huawei AppGallery, F-Droid, Uptodown, GetJar, Rootpk have no sort options.

APKMirror has a sort option for update date.

The other APK services have no sort options.

Aurora Store, AppsHive, and Really Free Apps have no sort options.

Finder+ by AppTap has sort options for rating, number of downloads and reviews, and update date, which however cannot be applied together with a query.

Play Games and Mob have no sort options.

TapTap has sort options for popular, latest, and rating, which however cannot be applied together with a query.

Analysis

Systematic sort can provide much better orientation than relevance sort. Of the big stores, only Amazon Appstore has them.

SlideMe has the largest selection of sort options, all up and down. Unfortunately, it has a very small selection of apps.

AppBrain, Amazon Appstore, SlideMe, and Itch.io have a sort option for recent downloads or something similar. This will be added to App Finder soon also.

App Finder can sort by the 3 arguably most important parameters. Importantly, it can sort by number of ratings from low to high to discover less popular apps.

Search queries

The handling of search queries and the available operators are compared in the following table for some of the most important tools.

Play Store / Play Games / Aurora / Playsearch	Aptoide / Samsung / Huawei / Uptodown / Rootpk	Amazon Appstore	F-droid	SlideMe	App Finder	AppAgg	AppBrain
Require complete match *	yes q	-	-	yes	-	yes	yes	yes
Allow partial match *	yes br	yes br	yes	-	yes	- #	-	-
Allow other word forms	yes par	?	yes par	-	yes par	yes	-	yes
Allow synonyms	yes par	?	?	-	?	- #	-	-
Require exact word forms	yes q	-	-	yes	-	- #	yes	-
Prefix search	-	-	-	yes	-	td	yes	-
Phrase search	yes	-	yes	yes phr	yes	yes	yes	-
OR operator	yes	-	-	-	yes	yes, and /	yes	-
Minus Operator	yes	-	yes	-	yes	yes	-	-
Search in title or summary	-	-	-	-	-	yes	-	-
Title search	-	-	-	-	-	yes	yes	-
Developer search	-	-	-	-	-	yes	yes	-
Parentheses	-	-	-	-	-	yes	-	-

* We define a complete match as the "occurrence" of all words from the query (if OR is not used). Different word forms and close synonyms are counted as match / occurrence. Accordingly, allowing partial matches shall mean that it is enough if some words or similar words occur.

q Quotes are used for this.

br Uses a very broad definition of "match". Shown

here

for the Play Store search.

par Only if partial matches are allowed (i.e. if quotes are not used).

phr Always requires the whole query as phrase.

# coming soon

td Title and developer only

/ Additionally, the special OR-operator / that can be used inside quotes and has another priority.

AppAgg additionally has the unexplained operators ^ and $ that seem to require expressions at the beginning / end of something.

The other tools:

As we have already seen in Overview and test searches, the search engines of the APK services all either return only few results, can only be used to search apps by title, developer, or package name, or have very few apps available.

Finder+ by AppTap allows partial matches, seems not work better than the Play Store without quotes, and does not support quotes.

We have already seen the limitations of AppsHive and Really Free Apps.

Analysis

The Play Store and the other larger app stores Aptoide, Amazon Appstore, Samsung Galaxy Store, Huawei AppGallery, and Uptodown all allow partial matches by default.

All of those other than Amazon Appstore often show many irrelevant apps already in the first few results, and some relevant, popular, and high-rated apps are shown only after tens of irrelevant results (sometimes more than hundred), or are not returned at all.

This is shown

here

for the Play Store. My impression is that it is even worse with the others, although I did not analyze it in detail.

Amazon Appstore shows significantly less irrelevant results. However, the collection of available high quality apps is quite limited.

The Play Store and Amazon Appstore are the only big stores that support phrase search and exclusion of words.

Only with the Play Store, quotes can be used to require complete matches, in which case it works reliably. A serious problem is that different word forms and synonyms are not equated in this case.

F-Droid can only search phrases, i.e. all words from the query are required in sequence, which is obviously a big problem. A specific advantage is that it can search by prefix.

SlideMe allows partial matches, but seems to work somewhat better than the big stores, and phrase search, exclusion of words, and the OR operator are available. However, the collection of available apps is very limited.

The search engines of the APK services are only useful to search for apps by name, developer, or package name.

App Finder always requires complete matches, quotes are not needed for this. This leads to significantly fewer irrelevant results, as shown

here

.

It allows different word forms, also inside phrases, so that the OR operator does not need to be used for this (as is the case with the Play Store when quotes are used).

Inclusion of synonyms will be added soon. For now, the convenient OR-operator / can be used to include synonyms manually, which also works inside phrases.

App Finder is the only tool that has an operator (+) to require words or phrases in title or summary, which can often help to eliminate most irrelevant results.

AppAgg also always requires complete matches and thus returns similarly few irrelevant results as the Play Store with quotes and App Finder without the + operator.

However, like with the Play Store with quotes, different word forms are not allowed, which may often lead to users not finding some of the best apps. (For example, try typing a noun in singular and plural, you will get very different results.)

It has an OR operator ( | ) that can be used to include different word forms and synonyms manually, however the common OR is not supported, and the | operator is not explained.

It supports further common and special search operators as you can see above..

AppBrain uses the same approach as App Finder and requires complete match, while allowing different word forms. However, it seems to support no search operators, even the most important standard search engine features like phrase search are not available.