What is AppData?
AppData was a market-intelligence and app-tracking service created by Inside Network, the company behind the Inside Facebook publication. It positioned itself as a standard for indexing applications and tracking their analytics on a daily basis, starting with Facebook applications and later expanding to apps across platforms such as iOS and Google Play.
Rather than an in-app SDK that developers embedded, AppData worked from the outside. It compiled public and reported usage signals into rankings, traffic estimates, and historical trend data, with an archive that stretched back to the late 2000s. Inside Network, including AppData, was acquired by Adknowledge in 2011.
Key Features of AppData
AppData focused on aggregating third-party usage data and presenting it as searchable rankings and trends. Its core capabilities centered on app discovery, benchmarking, and tracking growth over time.
- Daily indexing of applications and their usage metrics across supported platforms
- Active user estimates, including daily and monthly active user figures and leaderboards
- Historical trend data drawn from an archive reaching back to 2008
- Comparison and benchmarking of apps within and across categories
- Tracking of fast-growing and declining apps to spot momentum shifts
- Coverage that grew from Facebook applications to broader app ecosystems
Why Choose AppData?
In its active years, AppData was valued because it offered an outside-in view of the app market that did not depend on installing a measurement SDK. Teams could research competitors and category trends without access to those apps' internal dashboards.
The long data history and daily refresh made it useful for spotting which apps were gaining or losing traction over time. Note that AppData is a legacy service from the Facebook-platform and early-mobile era, and it is no longer offered as an actively maintained, generally available product, so the notes here describe what it provided historically.
Who Can Benefit from AppData?
AppData was built for people who needed competitive and market context rather than first-party in-app analytics. That audience included product and growth teams sizing a category, marketers and business development staff scouting partners, and analysts or investors tracking app momentum.
It suited anyone studying the broader ecosystem, where the question was less about a single app's funnel and more about how apps ranked, grew, and compared against each other across the market.
How to Get Started with AppData
AppData operated as a web-based service through its own platform, so there was no SDK to integrate. Users searched for apps, reviewed rankings and trend charts, and tracked the metrics relevant to their research directly in the interface.
Because AppData is a legacy service that is no longer actively offered, teams looking for similar capabilities today generally turn to current app market-intelligence and analytics providers. App Samurai can help you evaluate present-day options that fit your measurement and competitive-research needs.