# Octopi Launcher

15 Hacker News commenters recommended Octopi Launcher and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Simple, polished Nova Launcher replacement that feels intuitive and works well on phones, tablets and foldables. Common caveat: widget resizing and some shortcut and gesture features are missing.

## Why people recommend it

- Feels like a polished Nova replacement (4 comments): "It is the perfect Nova Launcher replacement. The UI and features feels like a more polished Nova and transitioning to Octopi is such an intuitive process." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688382)) "Octopi Launcher is more modern, more refined Nova replacement that you are looking for." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688336)) "it is exactly what you are looking for - a smoother, better Nova Launcher" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688439))
- Simple, uncluttered, does what it should (4 comments): "It's simple, has customization you might want without requiring it in order to be useful, and works great on various phones." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46698398)) "Pretty good so far, and I'm happy to remove the useless Google search bar" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46691224)) "Simple, does exactly what it should. Works great on foldables, as well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688227))
- Works reliably across phones and foldables (4 comments): "It's simple, has customization you might want without requiring it in order to be useful, and works great on various phones." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46698398)) "Simple, does exactly what it should. Works great on foldables, as well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688227)) "Works great, rock solid, zero issues." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688215))
- Customizable without needing setup (3 comments): "It's simple, has customization you might want without requiring it in order to be useful, and works great on various phones." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46698398)) "Octopi supports it. In settings you can set "open folders by swiping"." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46704279)) "it has swipe up/down functionality" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46935245))

## What people warn about

- Widgets don't resize properly (2 comments): "I liked it, but when I added a 4x1 widget (meteoblue forecast), that didn’t properly resize to the size available." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688569)) "Slightly better widgets than lawnchair, but still sizing issues." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688548))
- Missing gesture and shortcut features (3 comments): "My only missing feature so far is more extensive gesture support." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692318)) "Some shortcut functionality seems missing in Octopi that was present in Nova." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46693687)) "these are impossible to link to a home screen icon" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46737712))
- Dock and settings feel messy (2 comments): "death by a thousand cuts. The dock looks like hot garbage when you flip to landscape mode" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692182)) "chaotic settings, can't even disable background picture for dock" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46702455))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Nova Launcher](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nova-launcher.md): 45 recommend
- [Kiss Launcher](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kiss-launcher.md): 29 recommend
- [Lawnchair Launcher](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lawnchair-launcher.md): 27 recommend
- [Niagara Launcher](https://hackerapproved.com/p/niagara-launcher.md): 23 recommend
- [Kvaesitso](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kvaesitso.md): 11 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Octopi Launcher", https://hackerapproved.com/p/octopi-launcher/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).