Top TikTok alternatives: check out these 5 Indian apps

If you are a social media user, chances are you are either on TikTok or have heard of the short video sharing platform. The short video sharing platform has been downloaded over 1.5 billion times worldwide, with around 466 million downloads from India.

The app started out as a platform for young users to create videos ranging from lip-syncing to comedic skits to viral challenges. It was originally launched as Musical.ly, but was later brought by Bytedance and re-branded to TikTok. Notably, the parent company is worth $100 billion as of May 2020 and is one of the most valuable startups at the moment.

However, TikTok has witnessed a slight dip in popularity in India recently. If you are looking for appls like TikTok that are made by Indian developers, we have listed the top 5 alternatives in this article.

Top 5 Indian apps like TikTok

1. Mitron
2. Bolo Indya
3. Chingari
4. Roposo
5. ShareChat

What is TikTok?

TikTok has over 1.5 billion users worldwide as of May 2020

Not many know that TikTok was not the original name of the platform, but is a merged outcome of Musical.ly and TikTok (owned by Bytedance). Musical.ly was founded by Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang as an education social network app, where users could teach and learn various subjects through 3-5 minutes long videos. However, they were soon to realise that the idea will never work and pivoted to a 15-second create-your-own-music-video format that is popular with younger users now.

The popularity of the platform took off and by 2017, it had more than 200 million users. The app was brought by Bytedance in 2017 and merged with its own TikTok app, which had a similar format and gained over 100 million users within a year of inception.

Bytedance consolidated the user accounts of both platforms and merged them under the TikTok brand in 2018. The new unified TikTok soon began to scale the heights of popularity and became the most downloaded app on Apple’s App Store in early 2018, surpassing even Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube.

Why is TikTok so popular?

TikTok is very popular amongst brands, celebrities and influencers

So, why is TikTok so popular with people from all walks of life, brands and celebrities alike? The reason is that the platform has now completely evolved and came a long way from being just a make your own music video platform. Today, the platform allows users to make videos about almost everything, varying from humour, hobbies, fitness, travel, music, photography, dance and more.

Moreover, as the app keeps partnering with celebrities and influencers to create new challenges, the fan base of these public figures flock to the platform and attempt to recreate the particular challenge. Celebrities like Will Smith,  Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and others have joined the platform, adding to the hype.

Top TikTok alternatives in India

Many apps have tried to recreate a TikTok-like platform. These are the top Indian-origin apps like TikTok you can download today.

Mitron

Mitron is developed by an IIT student from Bangalore

Mitron app recently shot to fame for being an Indian alternative to TikTok. The app has been developed by Shivank Agarwal, who is an IIT student. At the time of writing this article, the app has over 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store. Just like TikTok, users are able to create short videos with an already existing library of audio clips and browse through a library of small videos posted by people across the globe. The app is rated 4.5 stars on the Google Play Store.

Bolo Indya

Bolo Indya let users posts short videos in a number of regional languages

Just like Mitron, Bolo Indya is an Indian app developed by SynergyByte Media Pvt Ltd. The Mumbai-based startup is more of an infotainment platform than entertainment. The app encourages users to make and post helpful videos like English learning, tips to crack competitive exams and more in 10 Indian languages. Users can create videos in categories like news, GK, relationships, health, English learning, entertainment, travel, food, cooking, motivation, exams, career, shopping, technology and more. The app also pays a royalty to the creators if their video gets popular. According to the company, Bolo Indya has more 4.65 lakh monthly and 2.75 lakh daily active users. The app is rated 4.5 stars on the Google Play store.

Chingari

The Chingari app lets users browse from 20+ categories of content

Chingari is being promoted as the ‘Desi’ alternative to TikTok that came into existence last year. However, recently the platform was in news for overtaking Mitron app and becoming really popular recently. The app lets users post image, Gifs, and short videos across 20+ categories. The short video sharing social media app has amassed over one lakh installs on the Google Play Store at the time of writing this feature and has been rated 4.6 stars. According to the Play Store description, it has more than 10,000 daily active users.

Roposo

Roposo lets users earn money by posting videos

Roposo is probably the oldest app here and is available for download on the Play Store and App Store. The app comes with the same core idea as the TikTok of sharing short videos of 20 seconds. There are filters and effects while creating the video and users can post across 20+ categories. The one advantage Roposo has over the competition is that it lets users earn money from their videos. For every video that gets featured, Roposo awards coins to the user, which can be converted to INR and transferred to Paytm. 10,000 coins amount to Rs 10. The app has 4.6 stars rating on the Play Store and over 50 million users.

ShareChat

ShareChat has been developed by IIT Kanpur Graduates and is based in Bangalore

Sharechat is an Indian social media platform, developed by Mohalla Tech Private Limited and was founded in 2015. Apart from letting users share short videos, images and more, the app also lets users chat with others and join chatrooms in regional languages. The app is available in 15 regional languages including Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Odia, Bhojpuri, Assamese, Rajasthani, Haryanvi and Urdu. User can also create their own chatrooms in their preferred language and invite friends. The app is rated 4.4 stars on the Play Store and has over 100 million downloads.