Nova Launcher Guide: Features, Ownership, and Future Alternatives
Are you bored of the familiar home screen setup you’ve been rocking ever since you got your phone? The beauty of Android lies in the sheer customization potential on offer. From basics like wallpapers and custom icons to switching out the entire look and feel of the phone, there’s a lot you can do to freshen up your handset using a bevy of customization apps. The ability to make a phone look precisely how you want has spawned an entire wave of utilities and launchers, a movement that Nova Launcher spearheaded for years.
What is Nova Launcher?
As the name suggests, Nova Launcher is a third-party replacement home screen launcher. The app replaces your stock home screen and allows for various gestures, icon packs, and granular customization that go beyond the default feature set. Your phone should look and feel exactly how you want it, and a replacement launcher like Nova Launcher gives you the flexibility of bringing back all the features you’ve come to like. These may include modifying grid sizes, widget placement, and app drawers.
I prefer to use Nova Launcher on my personal devices because it lets me customize my home-screen grid exactly how I like it. Moreover, I’ve come to like features like the ability to overlap widgets, lock my home screen layout, or easily back up and restore my app layout whenever I switch phones. It’s light on resources, making it the perfect choice for older devices that might be a bit short on power. The home screen replacement is extremely well-optimized and will let you adjust animation speeds or even remove them altogether to make the user experience as fast as possible.
Nova Launcher Free vs Prime
Nova Launcher is available with a very generous free version that provides most of the functionality for free. For most users, this will be more than enough to get started customizing their phones. However, advanced users will benefit from some features locked away with Nova Launcher Prime. Chief amongst these is gesture support that lets you initiate actions by pinching, swiping, and more on apps or folders. Nova Launcher Prime also supports notification badges that display a count of unread notifications on top of apps.
| Edition | Key Features | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Nova Launcher Free | Basic customization, grid sizes, widget placement | Free |
| Nova Launcher Prime | Gesture support, notification badges, hide apps, drawer groups | $5 |
Ownership and the Current State of Development
In 2022, Nova Launcher was acquired by the analytics firm Branch. In 2024, Branch laid off over a hundred members of Nova Launcher’s development team, leaving just one member: the launcher’s original developer and founder, Kevin Barry. While this move hasn’t affected the launcher’s functionality at present, it’s unclear how it will affect development in the future. The stable version of Nova hasn’t seen an update since May 2024.
In September 2025, Barry announced his departure from Branch, signaling the end of Nova Launcher’s active development. Although the app received a surprise update in October 2025, it is essentially an abandoned app. Nova Launcher is effectively dead. Importantly, since Nova Launcher is effectively rudderless, we don’t recommend purchasing it.
Transitioning to Smart Launcher
The Android community is still coming to terms with the loss of Nova Launcher, one of the best customization tools that’s been around for over a decade. But as Nova’s story comes to an end, another launcher is stepping up to welcome users who are looking for alternatives. Folks at Smart Launcher are ready to welcome Nova users with open arms and feature parity. The launcher has some of the same features as Nova, and the team is also working on supporting backup imports from Nova.
In terms of features, Smart Launcher highlights its modular nature and similarity to Nova. The team has outlined a 12-month roadmap, which includes the following features:
- Infinite home screen scroll
- Quick folder actions
- More folder customization
- Improved search access
The developers confirmed that the upcoming Smart Launcher 7 update will be free for existing users. “Our commitment is to respect that legacy while building something you can rely on every day,” the developers said regarding the transition for former Nova users.