Launch Arcade is a subscription browser app store. 500+ games, tools, music makers, and creative apps that live in a tab. Open one, play it, close it. Nothing to download, nothing to install, no app store gatekeeper deciding whether your Tuesday afternoon distraction is worthy.
The pitch is closer to Netflix than to Steam. Subscribe, unlock what you want, swap things out as you go. Your saves and high scores ride along with you from your laptop to your phone to whatever screen you happen to be near.
What kinds of apps are on Launch Arcade?
We sort the catalog into 12 categories, which is why we keep saying "app store" instead of "game site." A taste of what's in there:
- Games — arcade staples like Flappy Bird and 2048, strategy picks like Chess, word games, puzzles, and a growing pile of originals built only for us
- Creative — paint in JS Paint, throw pixels on the community wall, tune your guitar with the chromatic tuner
- Education — wander the Solar System in 3D, drill chess openings, read picture books out loud with a toddler in your lap
- Health & Fitness — breathing exercises for when the day's gone sideways, HIIT timers, calorie math
- Music, Tools, Productivity, Finance, Lifestyle — a browser theremin, typing tests, "what should I cook" meal pickers, dice rollers, finance calculators, all sorts
Every app comes with a free timed demo, so you can poke around before you commit to anything. A handful are always free with a free account. The rest you unlock into slots on a subscription:
- Basic — 5 apps, $4.99/month
- Pro — 15 apps, $9.99/month
- Max — unlimited apps, $19.99/month
Anything you unlock lands on your My Arcade shelf. Rotate the lineup whenever you want. Your saves stick around even when an app isn't in your active slots, so you can come back to that half-finished chess match a month later and pick up where you stopped.
Why browser apps?
Browsers got really good when nobody was looking. WebGL handles actual 3D. Web Audio does proper synthesis. Canvas draws pixel by pixel without breaking a sweat. The apps in here aren't watered-down web versions of "real" software — plenty of them hold their own against anything you'd install.
The upside is the obvious one. Click, play. No download bar, no 4GB carved out of your storage, no nagging update on launch. Something that worked last week still works today, on whatever device you happen to be holding.
Who builds the apps?
We started by hand-picking the best open-source browser apps on GitHub and giving them a proper home. But the catalog isn't just curated leftovers — independent developers can ship their own apps here, take a cut of subscription revenue based on how much people actually play them, and land in front of an audience that already showed up looking for something new.
If you build for the web, the creator program is open. The Platform SDK hands you cloud saves, leaderboards, achievements, and analytics on day one, so you can skip the backend and get to the fun part.
Start exploring
You don't need an account to look around. Every app has a free demo, no credit card, no strings. Browse the full catalog and see what catches your eye.
