BlueStacks (also known as BlueStacks by now.gg, Inc.) is a chain of

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...

-based online

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

products developed by the

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

-based company of the same name. The BlueStacks App Player enables the execution of Android applications on computers running

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

History

At the Citrix Synergy conference held in

, an early version of BlueStacks App Player was showcased on stage by

Citrix Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational cloud computing and virtualization technology company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologies. C ...

CEO Mark Templeton, who also announced a partnership between the two companies. The initial

alpha version The software release life cycle is the process of developing, testing, and distributing a software product (e.g., an operating system). It typically consists of several stages, such as pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release candidate, before the fi ...

of App Player was launched in October 2011, and it exited

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

on June 7, 2014. In July 2014,

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

disclosed its investment in BlueStacks.

BlueStacks (Android emulator)

BlueStacks generates its primary revenue through an Android emulator referred to as App Player. The basic features of the software are available for free, while advanced features require a paid monthly subscription. By February 2021, BlueStacks reported over 1 billion app downloads. The App Player provides support for mouse, keyboard, and external touch-pad controls. In June 2012, the company introduced an alpha version of its App Player software for macOS, while the beta version was released in December of the same year. In December 2024, it released BlueStacks Air for Apple Silicon Macs.

BlueStacks 2

In April 2015, BlueStacks, Inc. unveiled that a new version of the App Player, named 2.0, was under development for macOS and was eventually released in July. In December 2015, BlueStacks, Inc. introduced BlueStacks 2.0, enabling users to run multiple Android applications simultaneously. BlueStacks 2.0 was also compatible with Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks or later until 2018. In April 2016, BlueStacks launched BlueStacks TV, integrating Twitch.tv into the App Player directly, allowing users to

livestream Livestreaming, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming media, streaming of video or Digital audio, audio in real-time communication, real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as ''streaming'', the real-time nature ...

their apps to Twitch without additional hardware or software. In September 2016, the company added

Facebook Live Facebook is a social-network service website launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg. The following is a list of software and technology features that can be found on the Facebook website and mobile app and are available to users of ...

integration, enabling users to stream their gameplay to their Facebook profiles, Pages they manage, or

Facebook Groups Facebook is a social-network service website launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg. The following is a list of software and technology features that can be found on the Facebook website and mobile app and are available to users of ...

they belong to.

BlueStacks 3

BlueStacks released BlueStacks 3 in July 2017, featuring a new engine and front-end design. This version introduced App Center for personalized game suggestions, an account system, chat, a new keymapping interface, and multi- instance support. The multi-instance feature permits users to launch multiple BlueStacks windows using the same or different Google Play accounts.

BlueStacks 3N

In January 2018, BlueStacks announced the release of the BlueStacks + N Beta, running on

Android 7 Android Nougat ( codenamed Android N during development) is the seventh major version and 14th original version of the Android operating system. First released as an alpha test version on March 9, 2016, it was officially released on August 22, ...

(Android Nougat).This was notable as most Android emulators were running Android 4.4 (KitKat) at that time. This version was powered by an upgraded "HyperG" graphics engine that enabled the use of the full array of Android 7

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

BlueStacks 4

BlueStacks introduced a new version, BlueStacks 4, in September 2018, BlueStacks 4 demonstrated benchmark results up to 6 times faster than a 2018 generation mobile phone during testing. Dynamic resource management, a new dock and search user interface, an AI-powered key-mapping tool, and support for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Android 7.1.2 Nougat were included in this version. In January 2019, BlueStacks released a 64-bit version of BlueStacks 4 through its early access program, offering improved performance and memory usage by running on a 64-bit version of Android 7.1.2. This version required a 64-bit version of Windows 8 or later with virtualization enabled and

Hyper-V Hyper-V is a native hypervisor developed by Microsoft; it can create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows. It is included in Pro and Enterprise editions of Windows (since Windows 8) as an optional feature to be manually enabled. A ...

disabled. This 64-bit release allows the installation and usage of ARM64-v8a Android applications.

BlueStacks 5

BlueStacks unveiled BlueStacks 5 in May 2021, still based on Android 7.1.2 but also offering compatibility with Android 9 (Android Pie) or Android 11, based on user choice.

BlueStacks X

In September 2021, BlueStacks launched BlueStacks X, a

cloud gaming Cloud gaming, sometimes called gaming on demand or game streaming, is a type of Online game, online gaming that runs video games on remote Server (computing), servers and Streaming media, streams the game's output (video, sound, etc.) directly to ...

service based on the Android platform. Bluestacks X utilizes throttling to adjust speed according to a user's internet connection, under the name of Hybrid Cloud. The servers for BlueStacks X's are hosted by now.gg, a subsidiary of BlueStacks.

BlueStacks Air

In December 2024, BlueStacks launched BlueStacks Air, an Android emulator for Apple Silicon Macs.

Minimum requirements

For Windows, BlueStacks App Player has minimum requirements of

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

or above, 4 GB of

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, 10 GB of disk space, and an

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

processor. BlueStacks Air currently supports Mac systems using

Apple Silicon Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...

chips ( M1-M4). For macOS, minimum requirements include macOS 11 (

Big Sur Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of the U.S. state of California, between Carmel Highlands and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Range, Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from th ...

) or higher Operating System, 8 GB RAM, and 12 GB disk space.

Criticism

BlueStacks has faced criticism for the forced installation of BlueStacks X alongside BlueStacks 5, despite separate download buttons on the website. Even after uninstallation, BlueStacks X reappears with each BlueStacks 5 update. Starting around February 2023, the installer began forcibly installing a crypto wallet application from now.gg, Inc. (a sister company of BlueStacks, Inc.) as well as an icon on the

system tray The taskbar is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, displaying and facilitating switching between running computer program, programs. The taskbar and the associated Start menu, Start Menu were ...

that runs on startup and cannot be disabled. This application has since been renamed to BlueStacks Services.

References

Android (operating system) Android emulation software MacOS Internet software Windows Internet software