Obtainium and Shizuku instead of Play Store: how to update APKs without an app store

⚡ The gist in 5 seconds

• Android Police has put together a scheme for auto-updating apps without the Play Store: Obtainium as a release aggregator plus Shizuku as the installer.
• Obtainium tracks builds on GitHub, F-Droid, and developer websites, while Shizuku grants ADB-shell-level permissions without root.
• The catch: every app must have a public APK source, and this setup bypasses the Play Protect check.

🔍 What happened

Android Police published a piece titled "Forget the Play Store: I built a self-hosted app updater on Android." The author explains how he ditched Google's store and built his own app update pipeline — using Obtainium and Shizuku. The announcement and link to the full text were posted on the outlet's Telegram channel: androidpolice.com.

Here's how it works, in detail. Obtainium is an open-source client that watches release pages (GitHub, GitLab, F-Droid, direct APK links) and shows a new version as soon as it appears. Shizuku is a middleware layer that spins up a shell process via wireless debugging or ADB from a computer and gives apps the right to install and remove packages without root. Together, you get something close to a Play Store storefront: a list of updates, an "install" button, no third-party launchers.

🧠 Our take

The scheme isn't new, but this is the first time a major tech outlet has discussed it so matter-of-factly. The reason, in our assessment, is store fatigue: ads in search results, delisted apps, regional restrictions, paid subscriptions for things that used to be a one-tap install. Obtainium and Shizuku have been around for a while, but until now they lived in the niche of F-Droid and GitHub enthusiasts — and now they're hitting mainstream media.

What this changes in practice. For someone with a dozen sideloaded APKs — fewer taps and no more manual version checking. For everyone else — an extra headache: updates only arrive where the developer publishes builds, not where they signed them in the Play Console. Some apps will never leave the store at all, and then you end up with two parallel worlds of updates on your phone.

Who wins. Developers of open-source projects and anyone installing betas and nightly builds: the distribution channel no longer depends on someone else's moderation. Who loses, in our view — the average user, to whom this is sold as a "Play Store replacement." Nobody here is checking APKs for malicious code, and the package signature still has to match the old one during an update, otherwise you'll have to uninstall the app along with its data.

A note on Shizuku: it's not a hack or an exploit, but a legitimate Android debugging mechanism. Still, keeping wireless debugging enabled and a service running is a noticeable security gap if your phone falls into the wrong hands.

⚠️ What we don't know

The source contains only a headline and a link, with no details: which Android version the author tested everything on, which apps he updated, whether he used ADB from a PC or wireless debugging, and how many steps the setup took. This is one person's write-up, not benchmarks or a comparison with the Play Store. Don't take it on faith that the scheme "works for everyone" — you need to test it on your own set of apps and your own OS version.

Prediction: within a quarter, Obtainium will see a noticeable influx of Russian-speaking users, and guide comment sections will see a wave of complaints about signature mismatches and lost data. Verifiable via repository download stats and the number of signature mismatch issues.

Disclaimer: a single source — an author's guide on Android Police; configuration details are not disclosed in the source.

Source: Android Police