Running my own Android app store for $0: how Free Lane works
By Frantz Vardman · 2026-11-15
Free Lane is my Android app store. It has its own app, its own website, open submissions for other developers, and automatic updates, and it runs without a hosting bill. Here's how it fits together.
Why build a store at all
The big stores want accounts, fees, forms and waiting. A lot of good free apps never make it through, and their developers end up posting install files that nobody can update easily. I wanted a lane for free apps that's safe for the people installing them and simple for the people making them.
The catalog is just files
Free Lane is built on the same open format F-Droid uses: a signed index file that lists every app, its versions, its icon and screenshots, and the fingerprint of each install file. When a new build of one of my apps finishes, the build system adds it to the index and republishes it. Because the catalog is plain files, it can be hosted for free, and F-Droid users can add the whole library too.
The app does the careful part
The Free Lane app reads the catalog, shows what's new, and installs apps through Android's own installer. Before anything installs, it checks the downloaded file against the fingerprint in the catalog. On Android 12 and newer, apps that Free Lane installed can update quietly in the background once a day.
A website that builds itself
The Free Lane website is generated from the same catalog every time it changes: one page per app, a search box, a submission form and a report form. Search engines are told about new pages automatically.
Open to other developers
Free apps come first. Developers send in their app through the website, a person reviews it against published rules, and approved apps go out to everyone using the store. Anyone can report an app, and reports go straight to the review queue.
I wrote up the whole system, step by step, for anyone who wants to run a store of their own.
Go further
Run Your Own App Store: The Blueprint
How a real app store works and how to run one on free tools: the catalog, fingerprint-checked installs, automatic updates, human review, rules and takedowns.
$39 · See it →Indie App Launch Bundle
Everything to take an Android app from 'it works on my phone' to listed, private, tested and auto-updating, plus your own store.
$79 · See it →Frantz Vardman builds free Android apps, runs the Free Lane app store and produces music as AceThe_Kid. More about Frantz.