Facebook is all about being connected to your friends and family all the time. And the Facebook app for smartphones makes it easier to connect with your peeps everywhere you go. However, it isn’t one of the most friendly apps, and if you have even a year old phone, you are going to have a bad time with it. Many people have complained that the official Facebook app is heavy on the battery, phone resources, and its background process will just make phone usage a pain.
Also Read: Top 5 Facebook Alternative Apps For iPhone and iPad
Fortunately, there are many alternatives to the official Facebook app that are lighter, faster and also offer unique features. To help you find the best Facebook app alternative, we have created a list of 7 Facebook alternative apps.
(If you are looking for Facebook messenger alternative then click here)
Table of Contents
Facebook Alternative Apps for Android
1. Facebook Lite
Before we start giving you more options to explore, let’s go with Facebook’s own solution to the official resource hungry app; Facebook Lite. This app is created by Facebook to help people with slower connections and older phones stay connected to Facebook friends. The app is tiny, light on the resources and also compresses data to ensure you use least mobile data. Facebook Lite can work on 2G network and in areas where there are connectivity problems.
Of course, with fewer resources required and being easy on internet data, it also means that you will have to sacrifice on looks and some advanced features. However, the app is good enough to see the notification, chat with friends, update status, upload photos and perform other basic functions of Facebook.
In case, Facebook Lite is not available in your country, you can the apk from the Facebook official website or apk mirror.
2. Swipe For Facebook
Swipe is doing the same thing as Facebook Lite, but it is focused on offering a more official app like feel with advanced features. Its interface is similar to the official Facebook app and somewhat behaves like it as well. At the same time, it is easy on the phone and battery to let you smoothly use Facebook even on the older devices. With the free version, you will get a Facebook app like experience and little impact on the resources. However, you will have to upgrade to pro version to get additional features.
The pro version has a material design touch with the ability to change the UI to Facebook iOS version or Google Plus app. It also creates a cache of visited pages so you won’t have to download the page again and you have full control over notifications and look of the app thanks to themes support.
3. Mini For Facebook
This is another great take on to minimize Facebook resource usage and offer great features. Mini is a completely free Facebook app that allows you to access your Facebook account even on the oldest phones or unreliable connection. It can work with the 2G connection similar to Facebook Lite and let you complete most of the regular Facebook tasks. Additionally, it’s interface is quite stylish for an app that is focused on saving resources.
Some of the additional features of Mini include the ability to download Facebook videos, show caller ID for unknown numbers based on Facebook profile, built-in chat, access to a news feed, slide to access options and all this in a small application of just 4 MB.
4. Social Media Vault
This is actually an app to manage all your social media networks with a single app, including Facebook. If you have multiple social media accounts, then using a separate app for each one will be very confusing and heavy on phone resources. Additionally, Social Media Vault offers exciting features that are worth trying even if you only need it for Facebook. It allows you to lock and access all your social network accounts with a single password or pattern lock.
It has an anti-hack system that will take a picture of the intruder if they try to open your account and enter a wrong password. Furthermore, there is a panic switch that allows you to quickly switch to another app with just a shake or facedown. There is total support for 55 types of social media accounts, and its built-in private browser ensures no one tracks your social media browsing session (complete browsing history is deleted).
5. Fast
Fast is a replacement for the official Facebook app that offers tons of additional features while also being lighter on the resources. It may not be the best option if you are specifically looking for an app that is light on resources, but if you want more features without too much pressure on your phone, then Fast will work for you.
Fast can do most of the things that official Facebook app can do, including a check news feed, share/like/comment on posts, upload photos, and videos, search for posts and people, access and manage groups and pages and other basic functions. Apart from the usual drill, Fast also allows you to download Facebook photos and videos, chat with friends inside the app; view curated news digest, view YouTube videos inside the app, password protect the app and its content and use a widget for quick access.
Fast is free to use, but it contains ads. You can upgrade to pro version for $1.40 to remove ads.
6. Metal for Facebook & Twitter
7. Folio for Facebook
Wrapping Up
Above are some resource friendly and feature rich Facebook alternative Apps for Android. Swipe for Facebook is perfect if you are looking for a direct resource-friendly alternative to the Facebook app. Although Fast is a good option for people who want more features.
Swipe, Metal, and Folio are the popular wrapper for Facebook, i.e. the Polish version of the Facebook mobile site. But all of them have more or less same features, except for the visual aspect.
If you don’t use Facebook too often, then there is no need to download a separate app. You can simply access Facebook inside your mobile browser, such as Chrome.
Also Read: How to Send Facebook Messages Without Messenger [ROOT]