Top Apps App Intelligence provides a unified market benchmarking experience, enabling you to benchmark and analyze acquisition, engagement, and monetization across mobile apps in a single workspace.
Unlike the store charts, apps here are ranked by Similarweb’s own estimates of downloads, monthly active users, and revenue, not by the store’s ranking algorithm.
What is the Value?
Top Apps simplifies market research by bringing together store downloads, active users, and revenue metrics into one report.
You can use Top Apps to:
- Benchmark market leaders: Identify top-performing apps across any store category by downloads, MAU, or revenue.
- Discover breakout disruptors: Isolate new entrants using release date filters and growth rate sorting.
- Analyze market trends: Evaluate aggregate volumes or track monthly performance trajectory over time.
- Measure market share: View proportional market share distribution across top competitors.
Top Apps vs. Top Charts
Both reports rank apps, but they answer different questions.
Top Charts shows app rankings as they appear in Google Play and the Apple App Store. Each store decides how to rank apps using its own rules, and the lists are limited to what the store chooses to display. Use Top Charts to see how an app is positioned in the store today.
Top Apps ranks apps by Similarweb’s estimated performance metrics, so you can rank by the metric that matches your goal:
- Acquisition: Store downloads
- Engagement: Active users (MAU)
- Monetization: In-app revenue
Use Top Apps to see who is actually winning on downloads, usage, or revenue, compare apps over time, analyze who is growing or declining the fastest, and measure market share, which store charts don’t show.
| Top Charts | Top Apps | |
| Ranked by | The store’s own algorithm | Performance estimates: downloads, MAU, or revenue |
| Shows | Store position | Metric volumes, % change, and market share |
| Time view | Daily rank | Monthly totals and trends, up to 12 months |
| Best for | Store visibility and ASO | Market benchmarking and competitive analysis |
How to access Top Apps
In the Similarweb platform, navigate to App Intelligence > Market Analysis > Top Apps in the left navigation menu. Included with App Business plan.
How to Use Top Apps?
Top Apps shows up to 200 apps for every combination of filters you apply: store, category, release date, timeframe, and country. That’s a far longer and more detailed list than the store charts, which show a fixed set of apps per category and can’t be filtered by release date, country, or time period.
Set your analysis using the controls at the top of the report:
- Store Selector: Switch between Google Play and Apple App Store data. Note: Top Apps currently shows Google Play and Apple App Store data separately. A unified view that combines both stores is not yet available.
- Category Filter: Focus on a specific category (e.g., Social, Entertainment, Games) or analyze All Categories.
- Apps Released After Filter: Filter out legacy giants to isolate newly launched apps released after a specific month.
- Timeframe & Country: Set the historical range, from 1 month up to 37 months of history depending on your plan, and the region (Worldwide or a single country).
Data Controls & Visualizations
Toggle between different metrics, adjust views and customize your analysis:
- Metric Tabs: Switch between Downloads, Avg. MAU, and Revenue.
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Total vs. Over Time:
- Total: Shows the full period as a bar chart. For Downloads and Revenue, this is the sum over the selected timeframe. For MAU, this is the monthly average over the timeframe
- Over Time: Displays monthly trend lines.
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Unit View (# vs. %):
- # (Volume): Shows numerical totals over time.
- % (Market Share): Displays a 100% stacked area chart showing proportional market share distribution. Available for Downloads and Revenue only.
- Quick Selection Menu: Select the Top 5, Top 10, Top 15, or Top 25 apps to show on the chart, or check individual apps in the table to build your own selection.
Note: App selection is per metric. If you switch from Downloads to Avg. MAU or Revenue, the chart resets to the top apps for that metric. This is by design: an app that ranks high on downloads may not rank at all on active users or revenue, so each metric starts from its own list.
- Compare in App Analysis: Select up to 5 apps in the table and click Compare selected apps to open them side by side in the App Performance Overview or a deeper comparison of their performance.
Metrics & Data Table
The data table lists detailed metrics for every app in your selected scope. Use the Columns menu in the upper-right corner to show, hide, and select more columns, and click Download Excel to export the table with your current columns and filters applied.
Shown by default
- App: App name and icon. Click it to open the app in App Analysis.
- Publisher: The developer or company that publishes the app.
- Category: App Store category classification.
- Store Downloads: Downloads from the store over the selected timeframe. Use this to measure acquisition.
- Downloads Change (% Δ): Percentage change in downloads between the first and last month of the selected timeframe.
- Avg. MAU: Average monthly active users over the selected timeframe. Use this to measure engagement.
- MAU Change (% Δ): Percentage change in monthly active users between the first and last month of the selected timeframe.
- Revenue: Estimated in-app revenue through the store over the selected timeframe. Use this to measure monetization.
- Revenue Change (% Δ): Percentage change in revenue between the first and last month of the selected timeframe.
Available to add
- Release Date: The date the app was first published in the store. Use this with the Apps Released After filter to spot new entrants.
- Last App Update: The date of the app’s most recent store update. Use this to see how actively an app is maintained.
- Ratings: Average store rating.
- Price: The app’s listed price in the store. Free apps show as Free.
💡 Pro Tip: Sort any metric column by % change while keeping the Apps Released After filter active to surface high-velocity disruptors before they reach top total volume ranks.
FAQs
Why does an app rank differently in Top Apps than in Top Charts?
The two reports rank apps in different ways. Top Charts reflects the ranking of an app in the store. Top Apps ranks by Similarweb’s estimated downloads, active users, or revenue. An app with a high store position may have lower real usage or revenue than its chart rank suggests, and the reverse is also common.
Why does the chart selection change when I switch between Downloads, Avg. MAU, and Revenue?
Each metric has its own ranking, so the chart resets to the top apps for the metric you select. An app in the top 10 for downloads may not appear in the top 10 for revenue at all. If you want to track a fixed set of apps across all three metrics, select them in the table and use Compare selected apps to open them in App Analysis.
How far back does Top Apps data go?
Up to 37 months, depending on your plan.
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