Looking for a homegrown alternative to TikTok? Well, worry not, Mitron has emerged as the newest competitor to TikTok in India. It has already amassed a whopping 50 lakh downloads and peaked at number 2 on the ‘Top Free’ apps chart on the Google Play Store.
Is the app any good? What’s all the hype about? Should you install it? Well, we’re here to answer all of these questions for you.
Before we do that, here’s a bit of background on this short video sharing app. Mitron (translates to Friends in English) is said to have been developed and quietly released by an IIT Roorkee student named Shivank Agarwal.
Why is Mitron Growing Fast?
The launch of the app comes at an urgent time. One, TikTok has already been flamed by Indian users due to the “YouTube vs TikTok” feud – involving YouTube sensation CarryMinati (aka Ajay Nagar). The Chinese app has received a lot of 1-star reviews on the Play Store and Apple App Store over the past week. This brought the app’s rating down to 1.1 from 4.5 over the past week.
Another reason for the influx of downloads is the negative sentiment towards China since the spread of Coronavirus across the globe. Our honorable PM Narendra Modi encouraged netizens and businesses to be ‘vocal for local’ goods as well. Thus, a lot of users are now switching over or installing Mitron to support the homegrown TikTok competitor. If you read through the reviews, a majority of them will say that they’ve installed the app only because it’s been developed in India.
Take these two reasons into account and you can see how the app has already seen over 50 lakh installs since its launch only a few weeks ago.
Mitron App: A Blantant Rip-off!
Mitron works exactly like Tiktok – through and through. One look at the app is enough to tell you that it’s basically a rip-off. You know that meme – ‘Can I copy your homework? Yeah, just change it up a bit so it looks like you didn’t copy. Okay.’ That is exactly how you can describe Mitron.
The UI seems to have been lifted straight from TikTok. It’s not a homegrown app, per se. Mitron looks like someone reverse engineered TikTok, changed the icon colors (see the camera icon at the center in the navigation bar) and placement a little, and decided to give it a go.
As shown in the screenshots below, everything from the home screen and navigation bar to icons and profiles – all of it similar to TikTok. You won’t be able to distinguish one from another if someone showed you just the home screen.
Being a blatant rip-off means the UI is friendly and super easy to navigate. Users who are already familiar with TikTok won’t even feel like they are using a different app. It’s just laughable. Mitron lets you watch content without logging in but you need to sign up to post content, which I suggest you don’t.
Mitron is only available to download for Android users at the moment, with no word on an iOS launch. You can head to this link and install the app if you want to support this homegrown Tiktok competitor. I believe the app will most likely be taken down over the coming days as it essentially copy-pastes the Tiktok UI. so, not so local app after all? What is your opinion on Mitron? Let us know in the comments below.
