Hello fellow pirates, did anyone know any good alternative to Niagara Launcher?
Thx in advice, happy holidays and happy new year.
Edit: checked all the recommended apps at replies and there is nothing I liked, I believe Niagara it’s the best minimalistic launcher out there, I will stick to the free version anyway thx to everybody who replied.
I’ve been using T-UI for like ever. Best version is the f-droid or GitHub version. The Google Play one is super nerfed. I doubt many people want a command-line launched, though
Might be a bit wrong on the piracy instance, but I never regretted paying for the Square Home Launcher (one-time purchase). I just absolutely love the Windows Phone style layout so much more than what other launchers offer.
Similar to what @azerial described for the Total Launcher, adding or editing stuff requires you to enter a special “Edit mode” and it might seem unnecessary at first to ever leave this mode. It’s just so nicely customizable and thanks to cube-“folders” and regular folders nested into the cube sides, I have about everything I regularly use on one page.
I like a launcher called Total Launcher. There’s a bit of a learning curve to get used to how it works, like for example, if you want to add a widget, you have to unlock the launcher by long pressing, selecting unlock, and adding an “application widget”, but i like it.
I like the way it handles widgets. When you unlock it into edit mode, you can scale any widget and it provides guides to align them. And then once you lock it back, there’s no risk of them moving. There’s a ton of settings i don’t use to make it very customized. I ended up buying a lifetime license.
Oh, I remember trying that out long time ago. Now there’s github.com/KieronQuinn/Smartspacer with a lot more functionality and it’s also expandable with plugins.
You can the free version of Niagara launcher, then use the “At a glance” widget from the Google app, or from the app “Another Widget” to replace the paid Niagara widget.
I moved from Niagara to Kvaesitso - my subscription lapsed and there were no Google Play free credits available to renew it. The renewal price was silly anyway, was almost triple the previous amount.
Kvaesitso is quite different but like it generally. Only thing I miss is the contextual calendar events shown under the clock - the equivalent space in Kvaesitso currently shows either the date, time until your next alarm, or some other misc stuff, so hopefully shouldn’t be too difficult for a dev/contributor to implement contextual calendar events if they choose.
The search is much more capable than the one in Niagara. You can optionally tag your apps too, so if you search “nfc”, all your NFC apps show up, or “sysadmin” to show all your sysadmin/homelab apps etc.
I’ve customized mine quite a bit so it looks very different from stock, home screen is also much emptier than it was before. Took almost an entire day to get it just right for me
Yeah I noticed the price raise too, used to pay like 2.5 USDs before now it’s like $7 or something. I’m willing to find a better solution, if not maybe my last option would be using the free version.
There’s a handful of minimal launchers out there that operate the same but nothing as fully featured as Niagara.
As far as costs go, I feel like $7/year for as many updates as they make and how much I use it (on multiple devices even) is one of the more fair pricing structures.
That doesn’t answer your question though. OLauncher might be your best bet and while it isn’t the same as Niagara, I could also recommend Kvaesito.
I have like 5 years using Niagara and paying for it, but I was wondering if there is any good free or cheaper alternative to it, I believe I will use just the free version, it’s not a lot $7 per year but I will cut unnecessary spendings this new year.
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