For years, the same names have dominated the “best Android launchers” lists. Nova Launcher, Niagara, Action, and Microsoft are all familiar names to those exploring third-party launchers.
But when Nova, perhaps the most popular third-party launcher, went dark in 2025 and was resurrected with ads, people left in droves to find an alternative to their beloved launcher.
I’ve always been happy with the default Pixel Launcher. It does everything I need it to, and I feel like I have the right amount of control over the layout.
Still, while exploring the aftermath of Nova’s ad-fuelled resurrection, I began noticing a new name being thrown around in discussions. All I can say is that I wish I had discovered Octopi Launcher a year ago.
Octopi offers unparalleled customization options
Freedom without frustration
Most of the talk I saw initially about Octopi was about its foldable-friendly features. However, it’s certainly not exclusive to foldables.
Instead, the excellent way it works on foldable devices seems to be a natural by-product of its design.
Most third-party launchers try to get you up and running by auto-populating your new home screen with the apps, widgets, and folders you had set up before.
Octopi ditches this for a blank home screen that invites me to set up my apps and widgets from scratch.
Here, I was introduced to the ingenious customizability of Octopi. There’s no dock by default, which led me to consider whether I actually needed one. But it’s the freedom of placement that had me hooked.
A standard experience with all launchers is placing a widget, then finding out it’s slightly too large to fit into your carefully curated app layout. After much rearranging and adjusting, you finally get a layout that works for you.
Octopi ditches these restrictions by separating the screen grid from the icon grid size. This makes placing widgets a breeze, even with the most random of app layouts.
Apps can also be resized freely, and the dock width doesn’t need to match your screen.
These customization tools mean creating silly layouts like these involves zero frustration.
I don’t plan to use these layouts, but it’s so much fun to pack apps and widgets where I want.
Speaking of widgets, creating a widget stack is as simple as dragging a widget on top of another. It’s a seamless transition, and swiping through the stack plays a tidy animation that keeps things interesting.
Octopi Launcher has dramatically improved my standard app layout
Improved productivity wasn’t my goal, but it happened anyway
I’ve written before about creating focus zones to improve your productivity and reduce distractions.
The short explanation is to place frequently used apps on the left of your screen, less-used (but still important) apps on the right, and informational widgets at the top.
The result is a layout that helps you navigate to the app you need as quickly as possible while minimizing the chance of distractions.
While I am constantly rearranging my home screen as I test new widgets and launchers, the core concepts of focus zones are always present to some degree.
However, it wasn’t until I used Octopi that I realized how limited I was by the Pixel Launcher.
Placing and swiping through widget stacks is immensely satisfying.
Being able to resize apps individually and create widget stacks lets me pack more useful apps into my home screen without making everything too small.
Expanded gesture controls felt irrelevant at first, until I realized they were customizable on a per-screen basis. So I can swipe right on my home screen, swipe up, and instead of opening the app drawer, I can open a shortcut to any app.
I turned one screen into a mass of widgets and bound most of the gestures to app shortcuts. This means I maximized the amount of information on my screen, while still keeping related apps close at hand.
But here I have touched on Octopi’s killer feature. While the result of per-screen customization is useful for standard phones, it’s a godsend for foldable and flip phones.
Octopi is the best launcher you can buy for a foldable
Separate your screens at last
Octopi lets you create unique layouts for each screen, but it’s capable of more than choosing which apps and widgets you want where.
As I mentioned earlier, you can customize swipe controls, so you can tweak the outer screen on your flip phone to perform a completely different set of gesture actions than the inner screen.
Nearly everything can be tweaked on a per-screen basis, including the app dock.
What isn’t immediately obvious is that Octopi also lets you create different layouts for each rotation. Don’t want to swipe between screens? Just create your second home screen in a different orientation and rotate to switch.
I’ve found this especially useful on my Pixel 10 Pro, as I can cram apps to the right and left of my phone’s display, while the hard-to-reach area in the center houses widgets.
Octopi Launcher has rough edges, but it’s more impressive and less frustrating than Pixel Launcher
Octopi Launcher is in active development (the official subreddit is the best place to stay up to date on development), so it isn’t as finely tuned as Pixel Launcher or as well-established third-party launchers like Niagara.
Nevertheless, its ease of use and customizability (not to mention killing off At a Glance and Discover) have me hooked. And as a bonus, it’s boosted my productivity.
