Melolo Review [2026]: 3.3 Million Reviews — and You Cannot Install It in the United States
Not in our ranking, and deliberately. Our ranking is a shopping list for readers in the markets this site serves, and Melolo cannot be installed in any of them. It has a review because the question comes up; it has no ranking position because the answer would be advice you cannot act on.
| Publisher | POLIGON PTE. LTD. |
|---|---|
| App Store | 4.88 / 5 from 97,379 ratings |
| Google Play | 4.6 / 5 from 3,330,000 reviews · 100M+ downloads |
| Interface languages | 4 |
| Age rating | 17+ (App Store) / 12+ (Google Play) |
| Released | 22 January 2025 |
| Last update | 14 September 2026 |
| Price | Free to install · in-app purchases (tiers not published) |
What is Melolo?
Melolo is a vertical short-drama platform published by POLIGON PTE. LTD. and released on 22 January 2025. The format is the category standard — episodes of about a minute, seasons of several dozen, a cliffhanger at the end of each one — and the business model is the category standard too: free opening episodes, then coins or a subscription.
What distinguishes one of these apps from another is never the format. It is scale, language coverage, how hard the paywall pushes, and how reliably the billing behaves. Those are the four things this review measures, and the only ones we can measure without inventing numbers.
What do the store numbers actually say?
Melolo carries 4.88 on the App Store from 97,379 ratings and 4.6 on Google Play from 3,330,000 reviews, across more than 100M downloads.
Read those two numbers together rather than separately. App store ratings are requested inside the app, usually just after an episode, and they measure whether the story was enjoyable. They do not measure whether the subscription renewed at the price you expected. A high store rating tells you the catalogue works; it tells you nothing about the billing.
What languages does Melolo support?
The App Store lists 4 interface languages. In a category where most apps ship in one or two, that is the headline feature rather than a footnote — it decides whether the app is usable for you at all.
How much does Melolo cost?
The app is free to install and gives you free opening episodes. Beyond those you pay, either by buying coins for individual episodes or by taking a subscription that unlocks the catalogue.
We do not quote a price we have not verified. Neither store publishes Melolo’s purchase tiers in the data available to us, and a plausible-looking invented figure is exactly what makes comparison sites worthless. Two rules hold across every app in this category regardless of the numbers: read the renewal amount on the payment sheet rather than the promotional banner, because the introductory week and the recurring week are routinely different; and never buy coins to unlock a single series, because at $30–50 that costs several times a weekly plan that unlocks everything.
How can you watch Melolo for free?
Every series opens with free episodes, and daily check-ins usually top up a small coin balance. That is enough to sample the format and decide whether the catalogue suits you, which is all a free tier needs to do.
The honest limit of a free tier in this category is that it is designed to stop exactly where a story gets interesting. That is not a criticism of Melolo specifically — it is how the entire business model works.
Is Melolo safe and legitimate?
It is distributed through the official Apple App Store and Google Play, both of which screen submissions and handle refunds. Its age rating is 17+ (App Store) / 12+ (Google Play).
The real risk in this category is not malware. It is a subscription you did not realise would renew, taken through a checkout outside the two stores where neither Apple nor Google can refund it for you. Subscribe through a store account and that risk largely disappears.
Where is Melolo available, and where is it not?
We checked six Apple storefronts. Melolo appears in four and is absent from two, including the one that matters most to readers of this site.
| Storefront | Listed | Rating | Ratings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | Yes | 4.88 | 97,379 |
| Philippines | Yes | 4.89 | 24,497 |
| Malaysia | Yes | 4.91 | 9,030 |
| Vietnam | Yes | 4.93 | 534 |
| United States | No | — | — |
| Singapore | No | — | — |
This is not a temporary outage or a search problem. The app simply is not published to those storefronts. If you are in the United States, Mexico, Argentina or Turkey — the four markets this site serves — Melolo is not available to you through normal means.
People do work around regional restrictions by creating a store account in another country. We are not going to walk you through that: it breaches the store terms you agreed to, it detaches your payment method from your own consumer-protection rules, and a subscription bought that way is one you cannot easily get refunded.
Who owns Melolo?
The App Store lists the seller as POLIGON PTE. LTD. The app identifier is com.worldance.drama, and Worldance is associated with ByteDance — the company behind TikTok.
That connection explains two things at once. It explains the production budget behind a catalogue that pulled 3.33 million reviews in eighteen months, and it explains the market focus: Southeast Asia is where ByteDance’s short-video distribution is strongest, so that is where a short-drama app from the same group launches first.
How big is Melolo?
| Store | Rating | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| Google Play | 4.6 / 5 | 3,330,000 reviews · 100M+ downloads |
| App Store (Indonesia) | 4.88 / 5 | 97,379 ratings |
3.33 million Google Play reviews is the largest sample we have recorded for any short drama app, anywhere — larger than DramaBox, larger than ReelShort, larger than FreeReels. On the raw evidence, Melolo is the most successful app in the category.
It is also the one you most likely cannot install. Both of those things are true at once, and a ranking that reported only the first would be misleading.
Why is Melolo not in our ranking?
Because our ranking is a shopping list, not a league table. Every position in it is a sentence that reads “install this one”, and that sentence has to be actionable for the person reading it.
We could put Melolo at number four on the strength of 3.33 million reviews, collect the search traffic, and let readers discover the problem at the App Store. Several sites do exactly that. It would be dishonest, and it would waste the click of everyone who followed it.
So the review exists — the demand for information about Melolo is real and this page answers it — and the ranking position does not. If the app launches in the US, that changes the same week.
What should you install instead in the US?
If you arrived here after failing to find Melolo in your store, the closest equivalents that are actually available to you:
- DramaBox — the largest catalogue and the cheapest route to unlimited watching. Start here.
- ReelShort — the only app that films English-language originals rather than dubbing imports.
- FreeReels — the widest free tier, 1.93 million Google Play reviews, 21 languages.
- DramaWave — 24 interface languages if English is not your first choice.
Pros and cons
What works
- 3.33 million Google Play reviews at 4.6 — the largest sample in the category.
- 100M+ installs in roughly eighteen months.
- Ratings above 4.85 in every App Store where it is listed.
- Backed by a publisher with real production money behind it.
What does not
- Not available in the United States, and not in Singapore either.
- Only four interface languages, aimed at Southeast Asian markets.
- Rated 17+ on the App Store, higher than most apps in this category.
- Pricing not published.
Final verdict
Melolo rates well where it is measured and, like every app here, publishes nothing about what it costs. The store numbers are real and verifiable; the pricing is not, and no review that claims otherwise has checked.
Install it free, watch the opening episodes, and decide before you reach a paywall rather than after. If you do subscribe, cancel the same day — access runs to the end of the period either way.
Melolo — frequently asked questions
What is Melolo?
Melolo is a vertical short-drama app: episodes of roughly a minute, series of several dozen, every one ending on a hook. It is published by POLIGON PTE. LTD. and was released on 22 January 2025. The app is free to download and makes its money from in-app purchases.
Is Melolo free?
Free to install, and every series opens with free episodes. After those you either buy coins or take a subscription. Neither store publishes the purchase tiers, so we do not quote a price we have not verified — check the payment sheet inside the app, and read the renewal amount rather than the introductory one.
What languages does Melolo support?
4 interface languages according to the App Store listing.
Is Melolo safe to install?
It is distributed through the official Apple App Store and Google Play, which is the meaningful check. Its age rating is 17+ (App Store) / 12+ (Google Play). As with any subscription app, the thing to watch is not malware but the renewal terms.
How do I cancel a Melolo subscription?
Cancel in your App Store or Google Play account, not inside the app — deleting an app never cancels a subscription. Access runs to the end of the period you already paid for, so cancelling immediately after subscribing costs you nothing.
How often is Melolo updated?
The last version we recorded was published on 14 September 2026. A regular release cadence matters more than it sounds: it is what determines how quickly playback and billing bugs get fixed after a phone or OS update.
Can I download Melolo in the United States?
No. We checked the US and Singapore App Stores and found no listing. Melolo appears in the Indonesian, Philippine, Malaysian and Vietnamese storefronts. If you are in the US, the app is not available to you through normal means.
Where is Melolo available?
Confirmed in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. Its ratings differ by country — 4.88 in Indonesia from 97,379 ratings, 4.89 in the Philippines, 4.91 in Malaysia, 4.93 in Vietnam.
Who owns Melolo?
The App Store lists POLIGON PTE. LTD. as seller, and the app identifier is com.worldance.drama. Worldance is associated with ByteDance, the company behind TikTok. That connection explains both the production budget and the Southeast Asian focus.
What should I install instead of Melolo in the US?
DramaBox for catalogue size and price, ReelShort for English-language originals, or FreeReels if you want the widest free tier. All three are available in the US App Store and all three appear in our ranking.
Is Melolo in your ranking?
No, and deliberately. Our ranking is a shopping list for readers in the markets this site serves, and an app you cannot install is not a recommendation. Melolo has a review here because the demand for information about it is real; it has no ranking position because it would be advice you cannot act on.
Sources
- Melolo on the Apple App Store — rating, rating count, publisher, release and update dates, interface languages, age rating (read via the Apple lookup API on September 26, 2026).
- Melolo on Google Play — rating, review count, install bracket, developer, content rating, declared ads and in-app purchases (September 26, 2026).
- www.melolo.org — the developer site listed in the store entry.
- Trustpilot company search — no usable Melolo profile found on September 26, 2026.
- Our own testing of the competing apps referenced above. Melolo has not completed our full hands-on cycle; any claim that is the developer’s rather than ours is labelled in the text.