Best Chinese apps for students, from payments to food delivery.
The right apps will make your life in China smooth, safe and convenient. China runs on mobile technology, and most daily tasks from paying for noodles to ordering a taxi happen on your phone. Before you arrive, download a VPN, because many Western apps are blocked. Install it while still in your home country, because accessing the App Store or Google Play from inside China can be difficult without a VPN.
WeChat is the single most important app. It is messaging, social media, mobile payment, ride booking, food delivery and official communication all in one. You will use it daily to chat with classmates, pay in shops, receive university notices and scan QR codes everywhere. Install it before arrival and add your bank card once you open a Chinese account.
Alipay is the other essential payment app, paired with WeChat Pay. Together they cover almost every payment in China. You can bind an international card to Alipay in many cases, which is useful before you have a Chinese bank account. Both apps are accepted at virtually every shop, restaurant and service.
For transport, Didi is the Chinese equivalent of Uber. It is cheaper than Western ride-hailing and available everywhere. For metros and buses, each city has a local transport app or accepts WeChat mini-programs. Shared bikes from Meituan and Hello are everywhere and cost pennies per ride, perfect for short distances.
Food delivery is dominated by Meituan and Ele.me. You can order from thousands of restaurants, with delivery in thirty minutes, often cheaper than eating out. For cooking at home, use Taobao or JD.com for groceries and everything else. Taobao is the massive marketplace; JD is faster for electronics and has better service.
For navigation, Baidu Maps is the local Google Maps and works well even in English mode. Apple Maps also works in China. For translation, Pleco is the best offline Chinese dictionary, and Baidu Translate handles longer texts. For VPNs, choose a reliable paid service before arrival.
For news and entertainment, WeChat channels, Bilibili for video, and Xiaohongshu for lifestyle and reviews are popular. For academic research, use the CNKI database for Chinese-language papers.
This guide covers what each app does, how to install them, which ones need a VPN outside China, and how to set up payments as a foreigner, so you arrive digitally prepared and avoid the common tech frustrations of the first weeks in China.