EU users can now install apps outside Apple's App Store — via Epic Games Store, Onside, and other DMA-authorized alternative marketplaces. This is a genuinely new discovery surface, with its own ranking logic and its own audience, not just a smaller mirror of the App Store.
For over a decade, ASO for iOS meant one discovery surface: Apple's own App Store. The EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) changed that structurally, requiring Apple to permit third-party app marketplaces and sideloading within the EU. Apps still go through a notarization process — Apple's baseline integrity and malware check — but they're no longer required to go through full App Store review to reach EU users through these alternative channels.
It's tempting to think of alternative marketplaces as a lower-volume side channel where you just mirror your existing App Store presence. That undersells what's actually changed: each marketplace has its own discovery mechanics, its own audience characteristics, and — since Apple's economic terms and notarization requirements still apply even outside the App Store itself — its own set of platform relationships to navigate. Epic Games Store's EU iOS launch, made possible directly by the DMA, and newer entrants like Onside (available in the EU and, as of February 2026, Japan) each represent genuinely separate ecosystems with their own listing conventions, not simply another checkbox on an existing App Store Connect submission.
Sourced from current reporting on DMA-enabled iOS distribution (see footer).
Each alternative marketplace runs its own store listing, its own search and browse mechanics, and often its own review/rating system — meaning the core ASO disciplines (keyword research specific to that platform, creative testing, listing optimization) all need to be re-applied per marketplace rather than assumed to transfer from App Store learnings. A keyword that ranks you well in Apple's App Store search isn't guaranteed to carry any relevance in a different marketplace's own search algorithm, since these are independently built discovery systems, not Apple-operated mirrors.
A common misconception is that distributing through an alternative marketplace means fully escaping Apple's economic relationship. In practice, Apple's own terms continue to exert real influence even for apps distributed outside the traditional App Store — the DMA changes the distribution requirement (Apple can no longer block alternative marketplaces entirely), but it doesn't necessarily eliminate every economic link between Apple and developers using alternative channels. This is a genuinely complex, still-evolving area of the regulation's practical effect, and it's worth treating any specific claim about "zero Apple involvement" via an alternative marketplace with real skepticism until verified against current terms, since the actual economic structure has been a point of ongoing dispute and adjustment since the DMA took effect.
If you distribute through both the App Store and one or more alternative marketplaces in the EU, it's worth applying the same incrementality-measurement discipline covered elsewhere in ASO practice — specifically, understanding whether a marketplace is reaching a genuinely new audience segment or largely cannibalizing installs that would have come through the App Store anyway. A marketplace's own reported install numbers don't answer this on their own; the same kind of holdout or trend-comparison thinking used to measure Apple Search Ads brand-campaign incrementality applies here too, just at the channel level instead of the keyword level.
Even on an alternative marketplace, apps still pass through Apple's notarization process — a baseline platform-integrity and malware check distinct from full App Store review. This means the compliance floor for distributing on iOS hasn't disappeared under the DMA, it's been restructured: notarization replaces full review as the mandatory Apple-controlled gate, while everything above that floor (store listing rules, creative requirements, monetization terms) becomes specific to whichever marketplace you're distributing through. Budget time for the notarization step in your release planning the same way you'd budget for App Store review time, since it remains a real gate in the pipeline regardless of which marketplace the app ultimately reaches users through.
Directionally true, unverified: the DMA and its enforcement are still actively evolving as of this writing, and specific requirements (notarization scope, economic terms, which marketplaces are authorized in which regions) can change — verify current requirements directly with Apple's developer documentation and the specific marketplace before planning a release.
"PixelQuest," a mobile game, plans EU distribution across multiple channels. These are illustrative choices to show the planning approach, not a real case study.
| Channel | ASO work required | Audience characteristics |
|---|---|---|
| Apple App Store | Standard App Store Connect ASO — keywords, screenshots, PPO tests | Broadest reach, most mature discovery mechanics |
| Epic Games Store (EU) | Separate listing optimization specific to Epic's platform | Skews toward gaming-engaged users already on Epic's platform |
| Onside / other marketplaces | Separate listing, notarization still required | Early-stage audience, smaller but potentially less competitive |
Illustrative comparison for demonstration — actual competitive dynamics and discovery mechanics evolve quickly on newer marketplaces and should be researched directly for any channel you're considering.
With new marketplaces continuing to launch under the DMA framework, it's tempting to treat presence on every available channel as an obligation. A more disciplined approach weighs the real production cost — a separate listing, separate creative, ongoing ASO maintenance, notarization overhead — against the realistic audience size and growth trajectory of each specific marketplace. A newer, smaller marketplace with an early-adopter audience might be genuinely worth the investment for a specific app category it serves well (gaming-focused marketplaces for game developers, for instance), while representing a poor return for an app whose audience doesn't overlap with that marketplace's actual user base. Treating each marketplace decision as its own cost-benefit analysis, grounded in that marketplace's actual demonstrated audience rather than its novelty, avoids spreading limited ASO resources too thin across channels that individually don't justify the maintenance cost.
Of everything covered across this batch of ASO topics, the DMA and alternative-marketplace landscape is among the fastest-changing — new marketplaces have launched, expanded to new regions, and adjusted terms multiple times within a single year, and enforcement actions and regulatory interpretation continue to evolve the practical rules on the ground. Any specific detail in this article — which marketplaces are authorized where, exact notarization requirements, the precise economic terms in play — should be treated as a snapshot as of when this was written, not a stable reference to build a long-term strategy on without periodic re-verification. Building a habit of checking Apple's own developer documentation and each marketplace's current terms before any major distribution decision is more valuable here than in almost any other ASO topic, precisely because the ground keeps shifting.
The DMA requires Apple to permit alternative app marketplaces and sideloading in the EU, creating genuinely new discovery surfaces (Epic Games Store, Onside, and others) with their own ranking mechanics and audiences — not smaller mirrors of the App Store. Apps still pass through Apple's notarization process regardless of distribution channel. Each marketplace needs its own dedicated ASO work, and given how actively this regulatory area is still evolving, treat current specifics as a snapshot to re-verify rather than a settled, permanent picture.