271 everyday apps in the Google Play Store: here are the most downloaded and highest-rated ones

We analysed the range of apps available on the Google Play Store across six areas of everyday life: education, nutrition, finance, fitness, organisation and wellbeing. The analysis covered 271 Android apps. Star ratings, the number of reviews and download figures were compared.

Smartphones and connected devices are made useful in everyday life primarily through their apps. The sleep data from a smartwatch, a workout plan or controlling the heating can usually only be utilised via the appropriate app. That is why we have investigated which areas of daily life have a particularly large number of apps, which ones users download most frequently and how they rate them.

Why is IFA Berlin examining the range of apps for everyday life?

Wearables and smart home devices collect data. This data usually only becomes useful within the app, for example, in sleep analysis, exercise recommendation, or heating schedules. It is therefore of interest to the consumer electronics industry to identify which areas of everyday life are already covered well by apps and where gaps still exist.

“How useful a wearable or smart home device is in everyday life depends largely on the app behind it. Whilst a smartwatch collects sleep and heart rate data, it is only good software that turns this into recommendations users can put to practical use in their daily lives. When it comes to wellbeing and fitness, our selection offers a wide range, with 55 and 50 apps respectively. The Play Store data helps us identify in which areas of daily life the software offering is already mature and where gaps still exist. Recently, 240,000 visitors to IFA Berlin were able to experience first-hand how such solutions work in everyday life, where, amongst other things, the latest health and fitness solutions from various manufacturers were available to try out,” says Leif Lindner, CEO of IFA Berlin.

Which area of everyday life do most apps revolve around?

The education sector has the widest range: 56 of the 271 apps analysed help with language learning, memory training or maths. Wellbeing follows closely behind with 55 apps, covering areas such as meditation, mental health and better sleep. Fitness accounts for 50 apps, including workout, running and yoga apps. There are 40 apps in the organisation category (calendars, to-do lists, shopping lists). Finance (household budgeting, saving, investments) and nutrition (calorie counters, recipes) each have 35 apps.

Which area of daily life has the most downloads per app?

On average, finance apps are downloaded most frequently: the 35 apps in this category average around 31.4 million downloads per app. Fitness follows with around 29.6 million, and education with around 25.4 million. Organisation (around 7.1 million) and nutrition (around 5.9 million) are significantly lower. Wellbeing comes in last with around 3.3 million, even though this category has the second-largest selection after education. Across all 271 apps, the average stands at around 17.3 million downloads.

The Play Store only lists downloads as minimum figures in brackets, for example ‘10 million+’. The averages are calculated from these minimum figures; the actual figures are higher.

How satisfied are users with the apps?

Across all categories, users award an average of 4.45 out of 5 stars. Finance apps are the highest-rated, with an average of 4.55 stars, followed by organisation (4.52) and fitness (4.49). Wellbeing scores 4.42 stars, education 4.39 and nutrition 4.37. This means there is a gap of just 0.18 stars between the highest-rated and lowest-rated categories.

The differences are greater when it comes to the number of reviews. On average, there are almost two million reviews per finance app (1,973,276), around 1.4 million for education apps (1,374,536) and around 647,000 for fitness apps. In the ‘Organisation’ category, the average is around 280,000; in ‘Nutrition’, around 122,000; and in ‘Wellbeing’, the figure is the lowest at around 110,000. Across all apps assessed, the average stands at 746,969 reviews.

Which apps are downloaded most frequently?

Duolingo (Education) and the Indian mobile payment app ‘Paytm: Secure UPI Payments’ (Finance) lead the way: both have been downloaded at least 500 million times worldwide. A further 17 apps have reached at least 100 million downloads: ten from the fitness category, three each from education and finance, and the ‘Period Calendar, Cycle’ app from the organisation category. There are no apps from the nutrition and wellbeing categories in this group.

The most downloaded apps in the six everyday categories

The following rankings list the apps within their respective categories. As the Play Store only provides download figures in tiers, several apps often share the same download tier.

Finance: Four apps with at least 100 million downloads drive the average

With an average of around 31.4 million downloads per app, Finance tops the category comparison. This is primarily due to four apps with at least 100 million downloads: ‘Paytm: Secure UPI Payments’ (at least 500 million), ‘DANA Indonesia Digital Wallet’, ‘Mercado Pago: cuenta digital’ and ‘Nu: Make more of your money’. In numerical terms, these four apps account for around 73 per cent of all downloads in this category. The finance apps Revolut and Wise, each with at least 50 million downloads and a 4.8-star rating, form the next group.

Fitness: Ten apps have reached at least 100 million downloads

Fitness ranks second, with an average of around 29.6 million downloads per app. No other sector has so many apps that are downloaded so frequently: ten fitness apps have reached at least 100 million downloads. Five of these are from the Leap Fitness Group, including ‘Six-pack in 30 Days’ with 2.84 million and ‘Home Workouts – No Equipment’ with 4.01 million reviews. The remaining five are MyFitnessPal, Strava, Sweatcoin, as well as Google Fit and Google Health (Fitbit). With ratings of 2.8 and 3.2 stars respectively, the two Google apps have the lowest ratings of all apps with at least 100 million downloads.

Education: Duolingo leads the way with at least 500 million downloads

Education comes in third place with an average of around 25.4 million downloads per app. Duolingo is the most downloaded education app and, with 49.1 million reviews, has the most reviews of all 271 apps. ‘Gauth: AI Learning Companion’, ‘Kahoot! Fun with Quiz Games’ and ‘Photomath’ also have at least 100 million downloads. Next, with at least 50 million downloads, are the language-learning apps Babbel, Busuu, Memrise and Mondly, as well as two maths game apps for children.

Organisation: A period tracker is the most downloaded app

Organisation averages around 7.1 million downloads per app (4th place). The most downloaded app is the ‘Period Calendar, Cycle’ with at least 100 million downloads, a 4.9-star rating and 4.89 million reviews. It was found via the search term ‘calendar’. This is immediately followed by the ‘10 million+’ tier, which 16 other apps have reached, including the calendars ‘aCalendar’, ‘DigiCal’ and ‘Business Calendar 2 Planner’, the shopping lists ‘Bring!’ and ‘Listonic’, as well as ‘Any.do’.

Nutrition: Calorie counters top the rankings

Nutrition apps average around 5.9 million downloads per app (5th place). None of the 35 apps has reached 100 million downloads. The most frequently downloaded apps, with at least 50 million downloads each, are ‘FatSecret Calorie Counter’ and ‘Yazio: AI Calorie Counter’. Seven other apps have at least 10 million downloads, including Foodvisor, Lifesum and Lose It!, the recipe apps Chefkoch, HelloFresh and Tasty, and the product scanner Yuka. Five of the nine most-downloaded apps are calorie counters.

Wellbeing: Calm leads the way ahead of nine apps with at least 10 million downloads

Wellbeing has the second-largest selection (55 apps) after Education, but with around 3.3 million downloads per app, it has the lowest average. Only one app has reached at least 50 million downloads: ‘Calm: Meditation and Sleep’ (4.1 stars, 614,989 reviews). Nine other apps have at least 10 million downloads, including Headspace, Insight Timer, Petit BamBou, Sleep Cycle and Sleep as Android. Seven of the ten most-downloaded apps were found via the search term ‘sleep’, two via ‘meditation’ and one via ‘wellbeing’. The Play Store does not show a rating for 11 of the 55 apps.

Wearables play a particularly important role when it comes to sleep and health, as the data they collect is only transformed into recommendations once it is processed by the relevant app. Visitors to the recent IFA Berlin were able to try out the latest health and fitness solutions from various manufacturers.

Which apps are the highest-rated?

Star ratings alone can quickly be misleading when it comes to app reviews: an app with 4.9 stars from 100 reviews is less meaningful than one with 4.9 stars from a million reviews. To rank the best-rated apps, IFA Berlin has therefore used the Bayesian weighted rating. This combines an app’s star rating with the number of reviews it has received.

These are the top-rated apps

In first place is ‘Period Calendar, Cycle’ (Organisation) with a score of 4.89. Close behind are ‘Six-pack in 30 Days’ and ‘Weight Loss for Men – 30 Days’ (both Fitness), which also achieve a rounded score of 4.89. Of the top ten apps, seven are in the fitness category, two in finance (Revolut and Wise, both with 4.79) and one in organisation. Six of the ten apps belong to the Leap Fitness Group.

How the Bayesian weighted rating works

An app’s score is a combination of its own star rating and the average rating of all apps. The weight given to the app’s own rating depends on the number of reviews. The more users who have rated an app, the closer its score is to its own star rating. If there are few reviews, the score shifts towards the overall average.

Score = v ÷ (v + m) × R + m ÷ (v + m) × C

• R is the app’s star rating on the Play Store.
• v is the number of reviews for the app.
• C is the average rating of all rated apps. In this analysis, that is 4.45 stars (253 apps).
• m is the median number of reviews, in this case 83,426. An app with exactly this number of reviews is assessed half on the basis of its own rating and half on the basis of the overall average.

Here’s an example: an app with 4.9 stars and 1,000 reviews achieves a score of 4.46, which brings it almost back down to the average. The ‘weight-loss app for women’ also has 4.9 stars, but with 1.23 million reviews, it achieves a score of 4.87. The ranking included the 253 apps for which the Play Store shows a rating. The 18 apps without a rating are missing.

How the study was conducted

IFA Berlin identified six areas of everyday life and assigned several search terms to each area. These 21 search terms were used to search the Google Play Store in Germany in September 2026. For each search term, the top-ranked results were recorded, usually 15. The star rating, the number of reviews and the number of downloads per app were recorded.

• Education: language learning, studying, memory, maths
• Nutrition: nutrition, calorie counting, recipes
• Finance: finance, household budget, saving
• Fitness: fitness, workout, running, yoga
• Organisation: shopping list, to-do lists, calendar
• Wellbeing: sleep, meditation, wellbeing, mental health

Apps found via multiple search terms are counted only once within a category (identified via the Play Store URL). Six pre-installed system or manufacturer apps were excluded: Digital Wellbeing, Google Calendar, Google Wallet and Calculator (all from Google LLC), as well as Samsung Calendar and Samsung Health (Samsung Electronics). These are installed on the devices by default and are not actively downloaded from the Play Store. A total of 271 apps were included in the analysis, 253 of which had a rating listed on the Play Store.

The Play Store sorts search results by relevance, previous user interaction and quality. The results may vary depending on the device, location, account and time of day. The analysis is therefore a snapshot and covers only Android apps. Some apps fit into several categories; their classification is based on the search term used to find them.

Frequently asked questions about the app analysis

Which app was downloaded most frequently?

Duolingo (Education) and ‘Paytm: Secure UPI Payments’ (Finance) were the most frequently downloaded, each with at least 500 million downloads. They are the only two apps in the study to have reached this download threshold.

In which area of daily life are there the most apps?

In the education category. The analysis covers 56 education apps, ahead of wellbeing (55), fitness (50), organisation (40) and finance and nutrition (35 each).

Which apps are the highest-rated?

Based on the weighted rating, ‘Period Calendar, Cycle’, ‘Six-pack in 30 Days’ and ‘Weight Loss for Men – 30 Days’ lead the way with a score of around 4.89. Based on the average star rating, the finance category performs best with 4.55 stars.

How accurate are the download figures?

The Play Store only gives download figures in broad categories, for example ‘100 million+’. The analysis uses these minimum figures. The actual download figures are higher, and apps in the same category cannot be compared exactly.

Why does IFA Berlin explain the ranking using a weighted rating?

The weighted rating takes into account how many users have rated an app. This ensures that apps with very few reviews do not gain an advantage simply because they happen to have a high star rating.

Why does IFA Berlin analyse apps?

Wearables and smart home devices derive their usefulness in everyday life primarily from their apps. The analysis provides an overview of the areas of daily life where there is a wide range of apps available and where gaps still exist.