I switched from Niagara to a launcher that costs nothing, requires no account, and looks great

If you want the cleanest minimalist experience on Android, Niagara has been the answer for a long time. One screen, one list, notification dots that respect your attention. I used it on a lifetime license for years and never felt the need to look elsewhere.

But that lifetime license costs $43, and the default ask for new users is a yearly subscription. Either way, you are paying for a launcher that still draws the line at widgets. That is the ceiling Niagara hasn't lifted. Mako doesn't lift it either, but it doesn't charge you for the view. It has been my go-to across every device I own since I made the switch, from my daily phone to a tablet old enough to stutter under anything heavier, and it looks great doing it.

Mako costs nothing and needs no account

Free, open-source, and running entirely on your device

Mako is a home screen replacement that swaps your phone's default launcher for a clean, fast, single-screen layout. It's built in native Kotlin and runs fully on-device, with no tracking baked in. That last part matters more than it sounds, and I'll come back to it.

Mako has no purchase price and no in-app payments to unlock the core features. It ships under the GPL-3.0-or-later license, so you're free to use, study, and modify it without paying a cent. You can install it from F-Droid, which hands you open-source apps without ever asking for an account, and start using it right away.

Mako doesn't ask you to sign in with an email, a Google account, or anything else. There's no onboarding flow begging for a profile. You set it as your home app, and it works, with every setting stored locally on the device. It doesn't even need a network connection to function, and that's a plus in my book.

Organization that reduces friction

Set it as the default, then group your apps the way you think

The setup process is about as short as it gets. Install Mako, tap Set launcher as default, and you land on a single home screen that holds everything: your apps in a list, with one compact info strip pinned at the top. That strip shows the time, the day, the full date, the day of the year, your battery percentage, and the battery temperature, all in one glance. The whole phone lives on one scroll.

By default, Mako lists every app alphabetically, which threw me off initially. With a few hundred apps installed, that meant my carrier's app sat near the top while the things I actually open were buried. Mako's fix is grouping, and once I set it up, it was all good.

Out of the box, you get two groups: Favorites and Default. To see and manage group headers, long-press an empty space on the app list page to open Settings, then turn on Show group header and Allow collapsing groups. Right below those toggles, you can add a new group or remove ones you don't want.

To sort apps, long-press any app on the home screen to enter selection mode, tap each app you want to move, then tap the move icon in the bottom corner and pick the group. Collapse the groups you rarely touch, and a list of hundreds shrinks to the handful of frequently used apps.

Minimalism done right still looks good

Sharp type, pastel themes, and nothing fighting for your attention

Mako is a good example of a minimalist app done right. The default layout drops app icons entirely and leans on a sharp, geometric typeface (the built-in Jersey 25 font), which gives the whole screen a blocky, deliberate look that stands out in a world of rounded corners and soft gradients.

You can also choose from multiple themes, though only a handful of them are available. You get pastel-leaning presets with names like Dracula, Catppuccin Moccha, and Catppuccin Latte, mixing purples, pinks, and greens across the interface. Pair one with a wallpaper and the opacity slider, and you can build something coherent without sinking an evening into per-icon tweaks.

There's also a bottom search bar to jump straight to any app, so you never miss an app drawer. If a text-only list feels too stark, you can switch the icon style from none to monochrome or even load a custom icon pack, which is a small touch that keeps the launcher from feeling like a placeholder.

In my experience, it feels best on old hardware. Because Mako keeps animations and effects modest, it runs fast on aging devices that choke on heavier, feature-packed launchers. If you've been hunting for a minimalist launcher worth actually keeping, the appeal here is that the performance never undercuts the look.

It isn't flawless. That single info strip can't be resized, and the layout customization stops well short of widget stacks or gesture layers. But that restraint is also why I like Mako. One compact widget instead of five, even if it's a little inflexible, is what keeps the screen calm.

Mako is minimalism done right

Mako asks you to live without home screen widgets, fine-grained layout control, and the ability to resize its one info strip. If your home screen is a dashboard, this isn't your launcher, and Niagara's polish in a few small areas still edges ahead.

I run Mako on my phone and on a tablet old enough that heavier launchers crawl, with the Dracula theme on both. It costs nothing, it never asked me to log in, and it kept its looks while doing it. Whether you are looking for a distraction-free setup or a minimal launcher for your aging device, Mako is an excellent free Niagara alternative worth considering.