Note: While this video is slightly out of date, it does give you a good idea of how Obtainium works and how to navigate it.
What is it?
Obtainium is an app that keeps Github releases up to date, without needing the Google Play Store or any other store.
So, for example, Vita3K is only available on Github – so you don’t have a good way of getting notified on a new update, it doing it automatically or anything like that, and that’s where Obtainium comes in.
Obtainium basically keeps any Github release up to date. It will notify you when a new update is there, let you install it from the app, and it basically acts like a store for Github. You can start to see why it’s a must have.
Install
So let’s go through the setup here.
Go ahead and install Obtainium through the Github link (https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium/releases).
Click the Show all assets link on the latest release to show all available downloads, and just download the one that says app-release.apk.
Go ahead and install the APK as well.
Open it and allow notifications so you know when there’s updates.
How it works
So, how it works, is you can click Add App at the bottom, paste the Github link of the emulator or app that you want to add and then click Add.
However, you can also just import my list of apps to make your life entirely easier. Let’s talk about that.
My Obtainium JSON
Special thanks to RJNY for his original Emulation pack!
My pack differs slightly by including Artemis, Syncthing Fork, Switch emulators and so on.
It also only focuses on Stable releases, which helps avoid getting multiple updates and notifications per day and avoids having to deal with new updates that could potentially break the emulator.
Here’s what’s in my pack – Obtainium will add these as options, and you can choose which ones to install, so don’t worry if there’s something here you don’t want.
- Artemis (Streaming client)
- Azahar (3DS Emulator
- Cemu (Wii U Emulator)
- Daijisho (Frontend)
- Dolphin (Stable) (GameCube/Wii Emulator)
- DuckStation (Stable) (PS1 Emulator)
- Eden (Switch Emulator)
- MelonDS (Stable) (DS Emulator)
- NetherSX2 Classic (Newest) (PS2 Emulator)
- PPSSPP (PSP Emulator)
- RetroArch (Stable) (Multi-system Emulator)
- RPCSX (PS3 Emulator)
- Sudachi (Switch Emulator)
- Syncthing Fork (Sync files across devices)
- Vita3K (Vita Emulator)
Download my pack here. (LAST UPDATE: 05/29/2025)
To import, in Obtainium, head to Import/Export at the bottom, then Obtainium import.
Note: Something to keep in mind. If you have any of these emulators already installed, for the most part, this will work – it will find them, and then keep them up to date. However, in a lot of cases, RetroArch being one culprit, may need to be re-installed or updated via Obtainium for it to work properly.