How to Submit Your App to AlternativeTo, and How Long the Queue Really Is
AlternativeTo has been running out of Stockholm since 2008 and Ahrefs rates the domain 80. Submitting is free. What it costs instead is patience, and to their credit they tell you that up front: "a new app usually sits in our backlog for at least a few months before anyone looks at it". There is a one-time $5 lane past that, and it buys a faster answer rather than a better one.
This is one of the directories we cover, so it is a form we fill for customers rather than a site we only read about. It is also the least like the others in this cluster: the form is behind an account with a confirmed email, the page you get is a wiki entry anybody can edit afterwards, and the comparison pages are built by a separate action from the submission form.
The free queue is measured in months and they will not tell you where in it you are: "We can't give you a date, and we can't tell you where in the queue your app is." The $5 priority review is, in their words, "usually reviewed within 1-2 business days, and up to a week over holidays or busy periods", and their terms are just as blunt about its limits: "Paying buys a faster review, not approval", and if the answer is no the fee stays with them. Decide which of those you are doing before you start, because the form is the same either way.
AlternativeTo submission at a glance
| Feature | AlternativeTo |
|---|---|
| What it is | A crowd-sourced alternatives wiki |
| Where | Suggest new application, in the user menu |
| Account | Required, with a verified email |
| The form | Six cards, seven starred fields |
| Price | Free, or $5 to be reviewed sooner |
| Free queue | "at least a few months" |
| Paid queue | "usually ... 1-2 business days" |
| While waiting | The page is visible only to you |
| Editing | Anyone can edit any listing |
| Links | 47 followed, 56 not, of 109 read |
| Domain | DR 80 on Ahrefs |
Per alternativeto.net, its robots.txt and ads.txt, /about/, /about/terms/, /faq/, /browse/new-apps/, the sitemap index and its 21 children, and 109 listing pages, read on 16 and 17 August 2026. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' figure via submitator.com/domain-rating-checker; no second provider was queried. Nothing was submitted, no account was created and no payment was made. The origin answers a Cloudflare managed challenge to non-browser clients (cf-mitigated: challenge), so pages were read through clients that render; robots.txt, ads.txt and favicon.ico answer plainly and were read directly. The six cards, their field order, the Required markers and the helper text are as the form renders behind the account. The form URL is read from AlternativeTo's own production bundle, where the menu entry Suggest new application carries url:'/manage-item/', and the same route with an id is the edit form; suggest-alternatives is the plural /manage-add-alternatives/. Queue, price, refund and rejection wording is quoted from /faq/ and /about/terms/. The link measurement is 109 unique listing pages sampled across the popularity range and read as raw server HTML in a real browser, since markdown conversion strips rel entirely: 47 carried a direct href with rel='noopener', 56 a direct href with rel='nofollow noopener' and 6 an href to their own /outgoing/software/ path plus the slug, also with rel='noopener'. Of the 54 with 43 or fewer likes, 48 were nofollowed and 6 were not. Likes are not the mechanism: six separate like counts carry both values, nofollow appears at 92 likes and dofollow at 20, and listing age and destination host were tested and rejected as explanations. Repeat fetches in separate sessions returned identical markup, and five listings measured twice by different tooling agreed exactly. /outgoing/ answers 307 and is Disallow-ed in their robots.txt; its destination is usually the app's own site and on some listings an affiliate address. Likes counts are taken from each listing's own page, since browse cards disagreed with them on every slug checked. Catalog figures are the homepage counter and a count of unique app slugs across the sitemap. The new-listing rate is from ten pages of /browse/new-apps/. Submitator submits here as part of its catalog: $29 for 30 directories, $49 for 60 and $79 for 100, one-time, chosen by you in the dashboard with DR shown, badges installed and kept live, a live link per completed listing, rejections credited back as +1 directory and a 30-day refund policy on the conditions in our terms.
The AlternativeTo form: six cards, seven starred fields
Not a wizard with steps, one long page split into cards. A star marks the fields it will not send without.
- Main info
Name*, Short Description, Website*, Full Description, Supported Languages, Pricing*
- Tags
Tags*
- Features
A prompted list, picked from what suits the app type
- Platforms
Platforms*
- Author / Social Media
Company / Author*, X username, Facebook URL
- Icon & Screenshots
Application Icon*, Upload icon by URL, Screenshots, Upload screenshot by URL
How to submit to AlternativeTo, step by step
- 1
Make the account and confirm the email first
This is the one gate that stops people on the day. Voting, commenting and editing other people's listings all work the moment you sign up, and adding a new app does not: their FAQ says "You need to verify your email address before you can submit a new app". Sign-in is Google, GitHub, Apple or an email and a password, so pick whichever you will still have access to in a few months, because that is the timescale here.
- 2
Check the app is not already listed
The catalog runs to tens of thousands of apps and much of it was added by other people, so search your own name before writing anything. If you find yourself already in there, the job changes completely: you are editing an existing entry rather than joining the queue for a new one.
- 3
Write the name exactly as they ask
Their helper on the Name field is unusually specific and it is the fastest thing to get wrong: "Name only, no tagline or domain. Use the official name with correct spelling and letter case." No "Acme, the invoicing app", no "acme.io". The Website field beside it wants the official site and nothing cleverer.
- 4
Write two descriptions, one short and one long
The Short Description is briefed as "What is the main purpose of this app / software? Keep it short, preferably in one concise sentence." The Full Description is where you have room, and they explicitly allow official copy: "A longer description of the application; this could be written by yourself or taken from official material." Supported Languages arrives with English already in it and a note that English is required for now.
- 5
Pick tags, because tags are what file you
Tags are the load-bearing field on this form and the helper says why: "Tags are used to place the application in categories and 'Application Type'. Application types are a sort of sub category and a way to describe the main purpose of the app." A line under the box updates live to show which categories you are heading for, so watch it rather than guessing. Get this wrong and the listing lands somewhere nobody browsing your competitors will pass.
- 6
Set platforms the way they mean it
Their instruction is narrower than the field looks: "Add supported platforms. Only add desktop / mobile OS if the app has an app for the platform. For web apps only use online and / or SaaS." So a browser-based product takes Online and Software as a Service, not Mac and Windows because it runs in a browser on both. The Features card underneath offers a prompted list picked for the type of app you chose, and it is worth a slow read rather than a skip.
- 7
Fill the author card and the images
Company / Author is starred and wants the company or person behind the app rather than the app again. X username and Facebook URL are optional. The Application Icon is starred: JPEG, PNG, SVG or WebP, and they suggest "A square image, 128x128 or bigger, with transparent background". Screenshots take JPEG, PNG or WebP at up to 3MB each and no animation, in their words "Animated screenshots is not supported". Both accept a URL instead of a file, which is the quicker route if your assets are already on your own site.
- 8
Submit, then decide about the $5
The offer to pay comes straight after you submit, and it comes back later from My submissions under Get reviewed sooner. Either way the listing is now invisible to everyone but you, which is normal: "While an app is waiting it is only visible to you — if you open its page you'll see it, but nobody else can." Note the date somewhere, because there is no queue position to check.
The link, measured rather than assumed
This is the part most write-ups get wrong in both directions, so here is the count. Across 109 listing pages read on 17 August 2026, the Official Website anchor took three shapes: a direct link to the app's own site carrying rel="noopener" on 47 of them, a direct link carrying rel="nofollow noopener" on 56 and a link through their own /outgoing/ path on 6. So AlternativeTo is neither a nofollow site nor a dofollow site, and anybody telling you it is one of those has not counted.
Of the 54 listings we read with 43 or fewer likes, 48 carried nofollow. Expect a nofollow and be pleased if you are wrong. Popularity is not the switch, whatever that ratio looks like at first glance. Six separate like counts carry both values at once. Nofollow shows up on a listing with 92 likes and dofollow on one with 20. Listing age does not track it either. Whatever decides it is stable per listing and the site documents none of it.
The third shape is worth understanding rather than fearing. On those six listings the anchor points at /outgoing/software/ plus the slug, which answers a 307 to the destination. That anchor is not nofollowed, it carries plain rel="noopener", but /outgoing/ is Disallow-ed in their own robots.txt, so a crawler is told not to fetch the address the link points at. The destination is usually the app's own site and on some listings an affiliate address instead.
The second half, which is not on the form
A listing and a place on somebody else's comparison page are two different things here. The pages titled the best alternatives to some product are built from a relationship between two apps, and that relationship is made through its own route: from a competitor's page the control reads Add Alternatives, and the submission form has nothing to do with it.
So once the entry exists there is a second decision, and it is a judgement rather than a field. Pick the products somebody would be leaving to arrive at yours, rather than every product you could argue a resemblance to. Members then vote on the pairing, which is slower than a directory that files whatever you type and steadier for the same reason.
It is a wiki, not your page
Every listing is editable by any signed-in member, and there is no claim or verification flow published anywhere on the site, so the entry about your product is not yours in any sense the word usually carries. Two fields are treated as more dangerous than the rest, the app name and the official website URL, and edits to those sit locked until an admin clears them. Everything else moves at community speed.
Their terms are unusually direct about where that leaves you: "We may remove, edit or refuse any listing at our discretion, and we may not always give a reason." That is the deal on a crowd-sourced site, and their About page frames it as the point rather than a caveat: "That's right, all the lists of alternatives are crowd-sourced, and that's what makes the data powerful and relevant."
Who runs it, and how much gets in
27 Kilobyte AB, at Box 45142 in Stockholm, with the domain registered in January 2008. Their About page names the people rather than hiding behind the company: "The site is made by Ola and Markus in Sweden, with a lot of help from our friends and colleagues in Italy, Finland, USA, Colombia, Philippines, France and contributors from all over the world." The homepage counter reads "150,772 Apps & Software Alternatives - Ranked by 2,026,380 User Opinions", and their sitemap exposes 54,065 distinct app slugs.
The throughput explains the backlog. Ten pages of their new-apps feed covering mid-June to mid-August 2026 hold 243 approved listings, which works out at roughly four a day going into a catalog of that size. The queue is not a formality and the months are not a figure of speech.
The slow ones should go first.
Directories answer on their own schedule, and the order you start them in is the one thing you control. Pick your thirty in one sitting and let them run at their own speeds.
Worth doing?
Yes, and start it early precisely because it is slow. This is a DR 80 domain with eighteen years behind it, a real editorial standard, a page that keeps working through the comparison pages rather than scrolling off a feed, and no charge for any of it. The $5 is a fair offer if you want an answer this week, as long as you read what it does and does not buy.
Go in with the right expectation about the link and you will not be disappointed by it. Then spend the time where it pays: the tags that decide where you are filed, and the alternatives pages you belong on.
Months free, or $5 for days.
Verify your email before you can add an app, then Suggest new application in the user menu. Six cards, seven starred fields, and tags are what file you. The listing is invisible until approved and editable by anyone after. Expect a nofollowed link, then put yourself on the comparison pages that matter. The whole catalog.
FAQ
How long does AlternativeTo take to approve a submission?
Months on the free route, and they say so themselves rather than leaving you to guess: "We get far more app submissions than we have time to review, so a new app usually sits in our backlog for at least a few months before anyone looks at it. We can't give you a date, and we can't tell you where in the queue your app is." A directory that publishes its own backlog length is doing you a favour, so take it at its word and plan the rest of your launch as though this one is not coming.
Is AlternativeTo free to submit to?
Yes, with one paid option beside it. Their terms put it plainly: "AlternativeTo is free to use. The one thing you can pay for is a faster review of an app you submitted." That is a one-time $5 priority review through Stripe, offered right after you submit and available afterwards from My submissions. Nothing else about a listing is purchasable, and they say so twice: paying has "no effect on your app's rank, its likes, where it shows up in alternative lists, or anything else on the site after it is approved".
What does the $5 AlternativeTo priority review actually buy?
A place at the front of the queue and nothing beyond it. Their FAQ: "Priority submissions are usually reviewed within 1-2 business days, and up to a week over holidays or busy periods." Two conditions worth knowing before you pay. Their terms state "Paying buys a faster review, not approval. The approval criteria are exactly the same as for every other app", and if the answer is no, "If we decline your app after a priority review, the fee is not refunded: the review is the thing you paid for, and we performed it." There is also a free fast lane you cannot buy: "Members who have earned verified status are placed ahead of the backlog without paying."
Do you need an account to submit to AlternativeTo?
Yes, and the email on it has to be confirmed first. Their FAQ draws the line exactly where it matters: "You need to verify your email address before you can submit a new app — this is to discourage spammers and bots. Voting, commenting and editing existing apps work as soon as you sign up." Sign-in is by Google, GitHub, Apple or an email and a password. The form itself is not at a public URL: it opens from the user menu in the top right, under Suggest new application.
Are AlternativeTo links dofollow?
Some are and some are not, and which one you get is not something the site explains. Across 109 listing pages read on 17 August 2026, the Official Website anchor was a direct link carrying rel="noopener" on 47 of them, a direct link carrying rel="nofollow noopener" on 56 and a link through their own /outgoing/ path on 6. Nofollow was the more common of the two by a clear margin, so plan for one. Popularity is not the switch, though, whatever the pattern looks like at first glance: nofollow turned up on a listing with 92 likes and dofollow on one with 20.
Where is the AlternativeTo submission form?
Behind the account, at /manage-item/, and their FAQ describes the route rather than the address: "You can add your software by using the option 'Suggest new application' that you can find clicking on the User icon in the top right corner. Then you have to fill the fields Platforms, License, Descriptions, Tags, etc. and click the button 'Submit the application'." (their inner quotes rendered here as single marks) The same route with an id on the end is the edit form for an existing app. Guides that send you to /manage/new/ are sending you to a 404.
Can you edit an AlternativeTo listing after it goes live?
Yes, and so can everybody else. AlternativeTo is community-edited by design: any signed-in member can open any listing and suggest changes, and there is no ownership or claim flow published anywhere on the site. Two edits are treated differently from the rest, the app name and the official website URL, which stay locked pending an admin check. Their terms keep the last word: "We may remove, edit or refuse any listing at our discretion, and we may not always give a reason."
Why do AlternativeTo submissions get rejected?
Their FAQ answers it directly: "It could be many reasons. Either it could be one of the clearly stated rules in this FAQ like nudity, non english apps or something similar. It could also be that we just don't think the app would provide any value to our users." (their lowercase). So the bar is editorial rather than mechanical, which is worth reading as an instruction: the listing has to look like something a person browsing alternatives would want, not merely like a real product.
Does Submitator submit to AlternativeTo?
Yes, it is in our catalog. Worth setting expectations on this one rather than on the form: the queue is theirs and it is long, so this is a submission you make and then forget about while the rest of your list gets on with it. That is the argument for running thirty at once instead of one at a time. Thirty of them cost $29 on a single payment, and you decide which thirty before anything leaves.
More submit-to guides.
Start the slow ones on day one.
$29, one payment, thirty directories. The quick ones answer this week and the patient ones answer when they answer, and you hear about each of them without watching thirty inboxes.