With tens of millions of users, Xiaohongshu’s mini-apps are all the rage!

In a previous article, Tea House reported on Xiaohongshu’s “Mini-Apps” feature, which was fully launched on August 18. The feature allows users to embed mini-apps developed by Vibe Coding directly into their notes, enabling other users to try them out immediately.

Recently, Teahouse discovered that a large number of Xiaohongshu users have been actively experimenting with this feature, uploading “mini-apps” with a variety of gameplay styles. As of now, several popular products have surpassed 500,000 plays, and the top 100 most-used mini-apps have accumulated over 17 million total plays.

Although the platform supports a wide variety of widget categories—including casual games, quizzes and assessments, image creation, and utility tools—casual games still dominate the landscape. Seven of the top 10 spots on the user rankings are held by casual games.

Platform users have let their creativity run wild, creating a dazzling array of games. Among them, a mini-game called “BBQ Simulator” has been particularly popular, attracting 646,000 players to give it a try.In the game, players take on the role of a barbecue chef, keeping a close eye on the meat on the grill and precisely cooking it to the customer’s desired doneness to earn high scores against the clock before the countdown ends.

"Oyster-Opening Live Stream: Rare Pearls Are Yours," which has already been experienced by 449,000 users, offers players an immersive experience of the fun of "opening oysters to retrieve pearls."In the game, players can shop for various types of oyster shells at the morning market, obtain pearls through steps such as opening the oysters and polishing the pearls, and then craft the pearls into various pieces of jewelry in the workshop to sell to customers and earn profits.

Another popular title, *Crazy Mom*, takes a different approach, featuring a fun survival gameplay mechanic centered on “don’t wake Mom up.”Players must move cautiously around Mom, completing tasks such as handing her milk, stuffed animals, and blankets to help her fall into a deeper sleep, while simultaneously building up their own drowsiness in an effort to fall asleep peacefully alongside her before she wakes up.

The massive popularity of Xiaohongshu’s mini-programs can, first and foremost, be attributed to the platform’s strategic planning. On August 17, Xiaohongshu officially launched the VibeCoding Competition, which, with its cash prizes, attracted a massive number of users to engage in content creation, infusing the content pool with abundant vitality.

At the same time, users across the board have spontaneously and actively promoted their own creations on the platform, fostering a strong culture of sharing; many users have also compiled “collections of hidden gem tools,” with related posts easily garnering tens of thousands of likes, further fueling the topic’s continued momentum.

What’s even more interesting is that Astrocade and Loopit—AI-powered UGC platforms often referred to as the “gaming versions of TikTok”—had previously also targeted young women as their core user base.

They believe that these users enjoy spending their free time on the product:After completing a personality test or interactive quiz, users casually share it with friends; once everyone has finished, they gather to compare results—this “create—share—socialize” behavior pattern can generate organic social virality, driving spontaneous user growth at an extremely low customer acquisition cost.

In hindsight, this proven user behavior path may also have played a key role in the explosive growth of Xiaohongshu’s mini-apps.

Currently, the widget has successfully taken its first step since its launch, allowing more users to experience the appeal of AI-powered creation and lightweight interaction. As for whether it will evolve into a more diverse ecosystem of features and attract users from a wider range of communities, we’ll have to wait and see.