Hey there, I've been using Bluestacks as my main android emulator for a while, but I disliked how bloated it is, especially that their cloud service app comes preinstalled.
Im wondering if there are other android emulators that are good to use. I've already heard about emulators such as:
I haven't actually tried most of these myself yet since I don't quite trust them. They are quite sketchy and heavily advertised
Waydroid works quite well for me, but it's Linux+Wayland only.
I think you should be able to install the Play Store and Play Services on Windows Android Subsystem, there's probably guides on how to do that but I've never tried myself. I think it uses Windows Subsystem for Linux in under the hood so I imagine it's probably possible to root it/install additional stuff to it.
Waydroid only fits a small number of configurations, including Wayland and x86. I definitely wish there was something like Bluestacks for Linux
Once it runs it absolutely slaps though! I'm not sure why it's wayland-only, it still just runs in a window anyway. Nothing seems to really require Wayland there.
But of everything, the performance is impressive, as it's just a container. Makes for a sick tablet on the 2-in-1 netbooks.
waydroid looks great! though I am a windows user :(
I've actually tried installing play store alongside Windows Android Subsystem before via MagiskOnWSALocal. It works quite well actually and root is enabled with Magisk. It was a bit of a hassle for me when installing though since Windows Subsystem for Linux and the other steps are required for installation. Though im not sure if there are easier methods now
Once you've got wsl installed you only have to copy and paste a few commands to start running the run.sh script
You can install debian from the windows store if I recall correctly
though if you want to install it in a different location you'll need to install manually with commands or move the installed files of debian wsl to a new location and use mklink in command prompt to create a link of those files to the original location you moved them from (don't rename folders and make sure you move and link the top level folder containing the debian files)
It's really a shame it's Wayland only. I always have issues with Wayland; if one Wayland app crashes it effectively brings down my entire machine.
You can run a Wayland compositor under x I believe (heard Weston mentioned a lot)
There is Anbox that's usable on Xorg but I don't think it's as performant.