Facebook is a super popular social media website. However, it’s app has long been plagued with controversy, resource management issues, and privacy issues. Thus, a series of third-party Facebook apps were born to help correct some of the issues. For years, tons of people used third-party apps like these to bypass some of Facebook’s less enjoyable features.
These days, though, more and more people are migrating back to the official app. Facebook and other social networking sites are limiting or shutting down their APIs to make third-party development more difficult. For example, we loved Swipe for Facebook, but Facebook sent the developers a cease and desist letter, and now the app is gone. Thus, this isn’t the robust arena of app development it once was. Here are the best third-party Facebook apps for Android, and we hope these stick around for a while.
Facebook and Facebook Lite
Price: Free
Credit: Joe Hindy / Android Authority
We realize you’re likely on this list to get away from this app. However, sometimes it’s unavoidable. Whenever Facebook rolls out a new feature, the official app will have it long before the third party Facebook apps. Facebook’s official suite of apps includes Facebook Messenger, Facebook Groups, Facebook at Work, and Facebook Mentions (if you’re famous). They aren’t great for battery life, but they’ll always get the new features first.
Consequently, Facebook also makes Facebook Lite. It’s a super light, simple, and surprisingly good alternative to its larger, battery-swilling sibling. If you want something lighter than regular Facebook, we recommend trying the Facebook Lite app. It’s still an official app, so it’ll get regular updates, and won’t suffer from API shut downs like other third-party apps.
Facebook LC
Price: Free
Credit: XDA-Developers
Facebook LC is a modified version of the official Facebook app. The modder, XDA-Developers users RaselMiah364849, removed a bunch of the fluff and bloat from Facebook’s app to give a cleaner overall experience. Some of the changes include the removal of News Feed ads, recommendations for people you may know and groups, and a bunch of other stuff. It is modified, so we can’t promise it’ll work on every Android phone with every version of Android. It doesn’t appear to work on the Pixel 7, for instance. In any case, if it works, it’s a much cleaner experience than the stock Facebook app.
Folio
Price: Free / $1.99-$9.99
Folio is a wrapper for Facebook, and one of the few good ones that remain. Since it’s basically a web browser that only goes to Facebook, the experience is much like using a web browser. You get both Facebook and Messenger, along with most of the features of the main app. It’s a bit clunky compared to the main app, but that’s to be expected. Some other features include an AMOLED-friendly night mode, color theming, and a favorites section to take you to your most used Facebook functions. You can unlock some more features with the premium version, which runs for $1.99. You can optionally donate more to the developer if you want to.
Friendly Social Browser
Price: Free / $1.99-$9.99
Credit: Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Friendly Social Browser is one of the newer Facebook apps. It has a pretty decent set of features as well. That includes theming, Facebook Messenger support, the ability to customize your news feed, and more. You can also download videos from Facebook. The News Feed customization allows you to filter out things like keywords. That’s a great way to get rid of nonsense you don’t want to see. This is definitely among the best third party Facebook apps. The pro version unlocks some of the features and goes for $1.99. This app is free for those who use Google Play Pass. It also supports LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram if you want alternatives for those.
Hermit
Price: Free / Up to $5.99
Hermit is something a little bit different. It’s a web browser that is made with the expressed intent of running the web versions of heavier apps. It creates each window in its own instance, so each site you use feels like its own app. Basically, you install this, create a new container, use it to log into Facebook, and now you have your own homemade web wrapper for Facebook. The app includes some customization options, like ad block, some themes, and more.
We love the premise and principle of an app like this, where you’re basically using the web, but each site feels like an app. We hope these developers stick around for a while. The developers do have multiple in-app purchases for various premium features, but you can get everything for $5.99, and we recommend just buying the whole thing.
HootSuite
Price: Free / $49.99+ per month
Hootsuite is a good third party solution for companies, businesses, influencers, and other folks with larger than average social media followings. The app lets you do things like schedule posts, send out posts to multiple social networks at once, and you can stream things like likes and comments so you can keep up with what’s going on with your page.
This is much too powerful and expensive for average users, but there are other apps on the list that should work better for folks without massive social media followings.
Simple Social
Price: Free / $1.49
Simple for Facebook keeps true to its namesake. It’s a simple web-wrapper for the Facebook mobile site. It includes all of the basic features. That includes interacting with posts, uploading photo and video, and all of that. It also boasts support for Facebook Messenger. About the only other noteworthy thing about the app is the small selection of themes. Like we said, this one is really simple. The free version has ads. You can purchase the full version for $1.49 to get rid of them.
SlimSocial
Price: Free / Varies
Credit: Joe Hindy / Android Authority
SlimSocial is a reasonably decent option for Facebook. The app is free without ads, although you can pay to support the developer. In any case, it’s a pretty basic, but functional wrapper. You log in, do your Facebook stuff, and use messenger all in one app. The app is also open-source so you can read the source code whenever you want. The only issue is the app has periods of being truly great and then periods where the developers get some bugs. When it’s good, it’s really good.
A web browser
Price: Free
Most third-party apps are some sort of web wrapper, and you can get most of the same effect by just using your web browser. You can go to any website, including Facebook, log in, and use the site as you normally would. Most browsers even let you put your bookmarks on your home screen so you can open the website directly like you can an app. The benefit is that you already have a web browser so this requires no additional download. The downside is that most web wrappers include things like theming that your browser probably doesn’t support. It’s still a decent idea, though.