As U.S. TikTok users brace for a potential ban of the platform, some of them are actively testing other options: Two apps with TikTok-like characteristics, RedNote and Lemon8, are now the most popular free downloads in Apple’s App Store.
Lemon8 launched in the U.S. in February 2023 and cracked the top 20 on the Apple App Store four months later, according to Sensor Tower. Like TikTok, Lemon8 features a “For You” feed that recommends clips and a “following” feed that serves up videos from creators that users follow. Sensor Tower reported in October that 94% of Lemon8 users are women and that the app had been downloaded 52 million times globally.
RedNote, which was founded in 2013, is much bigger: Bloomberg recently reported that it has more than 300 million monthly active users and that it made $1 billion in profit in 2024. The platform has a trending feed that resembles TikTok’s, allowing users to vertically scroll through short-form videos. It also incorporates regular photos, text posts, and e-commerce; one tester described it as “Instagram meets TikTok meets Reddit.”
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Both Lemon8 and RedNote are owned by Chinese entities — in fact, Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. That could mean these apps also have a precarious future in the U.S., as TikTok is facing a ban because the American government is worried about its Chinese ownership.
“I’ve been concerned, literally for years, that because TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese firm, and every company — based upon Chinese law — has to be first and foremost loyal to the Communist Party of China, not to their shareholders or customers, that TikTok has posed a national security concern,” Sen. Mark Warner said earlier this month. His concerns would presumably extend to other ByteDance-owned companies, like CapCut and Lemon8.
In December, the Supreme Court agreed to hear TikTok’s challenge to the law that would either force ByteDance to sell the app or bar it from the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump also asked the court to pause the ban, promising to “resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”
But after the Supreme Court hearing last week, most legal experts believe the justices will uphold the law. In that case, ByteDance would have to offload TikTok or face a ban on Jan. 19.
At the Supreme Court hearing, Justice Brett Kavanaugh claimed that China could use data harvested from TikTok to “develop spies, to turn people, to blackmail people.” And Chief Justice John Roberts asked how the court was “supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent [company] is, in fact, subject to doing intelligence work for the Chinese government?”
With TikTok’s possible prohibition just days away, some labels have already started gaming out alternative marketing strategies.
“It’s hard to imagine a reality where TikTok actually goes down,” one executive told Billboard in December. “But we need to be prepared.”
