Install apps straight from GitHub with Obtainium
Some of the best private apps only publish on GitHub. Obtainium installs and updates them from the developer's own releases: setup, settings, one-tap list.
F-Droid covers a lot, Aurora Store covers the Play catalog — and then there’s the third pile: apps whose developers simply publish an APK on their GitHub releases page and call it a day. Molly, Cromite, Brave’s builds, the newest versions of half the open-source apps in our private app picks. You can download those by hand and remember to check for updates every week. Nobody does.
Obtainium fixes that. It’s a small open-source app that watches a project’s releases page, installs the APK straight from the source, and notifies you (or updates on its own) when a new release lands. No store in the middle, no account, no middleman rebuilding the app.
1. Install Obtainium
Pick one source and stick with it — Android only accepts updates signed by the same key as the installed copy:
- F-Droid: search for Obtainium (package
dev.imranr.obtainium.fdroid). Easiest if you already use F-Droid. - GitHub releases: github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium/releases. Download the APK for your phone’s processor — on any phone from the last six years that’s the one with
arm64-v8ain the name. Your browser will ask for permission to install unknown apps; allow it for this one install.
Verify you got the real thing
Before you trust Obtainium to install everything else, check that Obtainium itself is genuine. The developer publishes the fingerprint of the key that signs every release:
- Package:
dev.imranr.obtainium(GitHub build) — the F-Droid build isdev.imranr.obtainium.fdroidand, thanks to reproducible builds, carries the same signature. - SHA-256 of the signing certificate:
B3:53:60:1F:6A:1D:5F:D6:60:3A:E2:F5:0B:E8:0C:F3:01:36:7B:86:B6:AB:8B:1F:66:24:3D:A9:6C:D5:73:62
The easiest way to compare is AppVerifier: open it, pick Obtainium from the list, and check the hash matches the line above. You only do this once — after that, Android itself refuses any update signed by a different key.
2. Add your first app
- Open Obtainium → Add app.
- Paste the project’s GitHub URL — for example
https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe. Just the repo address, not a specific release. - Tap Add. Obtainium reads the latest release, shows you the APK it found, and asks to install. The first time, Android asks you to allow Obtainium to install apps — allow it.
Faster: every app on our category pages that publishes on GitHub has an Add to Obtainium button. Tap it on your phone and Obtainium opens with the URL already filled in — you still review and confirm. (On a computer the button does nothing; it only works where Obtainium is installed.)
3. The settings that matter
Open the app’s entry in Obtainium (or the options when adding it) — most apps need nothing, but four settings solve 95% of problems:
- Filter APKs by regular expression. Many projects upload several APKs per release — one per processor, a Play flavour and an F-Droid flavour, a debug build. If Obtainium asks you to choose every time, set a filter. Our table below lists the filter we use for each app that needs one (for example
arm64-v8a, orfdroidto pick a project’s FOSS build). - Include prereleases — leave off. Betas land on GitHub constantly; you want the releases the developer calls stable. Only turn it on for an app you’re deliberately testing.
- Filter release titles by regular expression. Some repositories publish several apps from one releases page (ente’s Photos and Auth share one, Bitwarden’s password manager and authenticator share another). Obtainium would happily install whichever was released last. Unless you set a title filter, get those apps from F-Droid or Aurora instead — that’s why they aren’t in our table.
- Background update checking interval (main Settings). Every 6 or 12 hours is plenty. When an update is found you get a notification. Turn on Enable background updates too, and Obtainium will install updates for the apps it manages without you opening it — Obtainium itself warns this may not work for every app, so glance at it now and then.
GitHub rate limits
GitHub lets anonymous visitors make 60 API requests per hour. With 20+ apps and frequent checks you can hit that, and checks start failing with a rate-limit error. The fix: create a GitHub account, generate a personal access token with no scopes at all (it only needs to read public data), and paste it into Obtainium’s Settings under GitHub personal access token (increases rate limit). That raises the limit to 5,000 an hour. A token with no scopes can’t touch anything in your account.
4. What you’re trusting
Obtainium doesn’t review apps — it fetches exactly what the developer uploaded. That’s the point, and it’s also the risk:
- You trust the developer, directly. No store reviewer is in the loop. Stick to established projects (the apps below all have long public histories), and be wary of forks with a few dozen stars.
- First install is the trust moment. Android pins the signing key on install and refuses updates signed by anyone else — so a hijacked release later can’t silently replace the app. Verifying the first install (AppVerifier, or the hash in the project’s README) is what makes that chain worth something.
- Wrong repo, wrong app. Copy URLs from the project’s official site or from our category pages, not from search results.
- Switching sources means reinstalling. An app installed from F-Droid’s build won’t take a GitHub update if the two are signed with different keys (most are). Back up the app’s data, uninstall, then install from the new source.
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Every app in our directory you can add with Obtainium
These publish stable APKs on their GitHub releases page — checked October 10, 2026. Tap Add to Obtainium on your phone, set the APK filter if one is listed, done. Each category link goes to the full comparison with F-Droid, Play and website links too.
Not on the list? Some great apps publish elsewhere: Signal ships its own APK on signal.org/android/apk (Obtainium can track that page with its HTML source), Aurora Store lives on GitLab, Grayjay on its own site. Obtainium supports GitLab, Codeberg, F-Droid repos and plain web pages too — the GitHub flow above works the same way.
Next: browse the app categories one by one, or start with the private app starter pack for the install order that keeps you from locking yourself out.