Only played apps get listed
Two weeks of real sessions is the minimum, and most apps get far more. Store screenshots do not count; the actual experience does.
Who builds this ranking?
A small crew in Düsseldorf that got tired of app charts assembled from press releases. So in 2023 we started playing everything ourselves.
A studio that actually plays
NeueWelle is not a content farm. Once a week we split the new candidates between us, then everyone goes off and plays: on the tram, during lunch, on the sofa at night. Notes are merged, arguments happen, and a score is only published once every tester has spent real time with the app.
The name means "new wave" in German, a nod to our home on Oststraße and to what we look for in an app: something fresh enough to stand out from a very crowded store. We publish in English because our readers come from everywhere; a good free app deserves no borders.
Our work is financed through partner programmes: when you tap through to an app's Google Play listing, we may receive a commission. That commission never rewrites the order. The scoring protocol is identical for every app, and a weak app stays off the list no matter whose partner programme it belongs to.
Three rules we never break
Scores are not for sale
Partner commissions fund the work, not the opinions. The criteria are public and apply to every single app the same way.
The list stays alive
Every quarter we re-test the whole ranking. If an app fills up with pop-ups, breaks or disappears, it comes off, popular or not.
