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AppManager. Super stable, feature-packed app that can do nearly everything with your apps.
AdAway. No ads in apps. At all.
Simple utilities. Just very good replacement for Google proprietary suite of apps. Good design, feature-rich, simple to use. Developer is really awesome!
Unciv is a fully-fledged Civilization clone. It's honestly insane that such a polished game is not only free, but also open source.
TLDR:
NewPipe for YouTube playback
OsmAnd+ for great offline maps with lots of customisability
Termux for terminal emulation and ssh
StreetComplete to easily contribute map data to the OpenStreetMap project, which also powers OsmAnd+ without knowing anything about OSM
KeePassDX for convenient and secure password storage including autofill (combined with Syncthing for syncing your databases this is a fully fledged password manager across platforms)
AdAway as a reliable adblocker for all applications which doesn't require root, but can use the benefits of rooting your device to increase its usefulness even more
+1 for all the NewPipe mentions, as it's extremely useful especially for background playback
Also OsmAnd+ is incredibly useful if you don't want to give your location data to Google constantly. The maps are equally as good as those of the tech giants and it gets expanded regularly with actually useful features, like most recently, weather data. Its biggest strength however is the customisability in my opinion, because you can style everything according to your needs, starting at the overlay and the style of the map and going on at the specific level of detail and custom navigation modes. Additionally, you can download maps of the entire world for free and they get updated regularly. Only downside: There is no traffic data as of now, probably because it would be difficult to implement without processing user data. It's also on the Play Store, but there the "+" version costs money and because the project in itself is commited to being open source I think it's important to list
Lastly, Termux really is the best terminal emulator for Android out there. It is extremely powerful, even allows sh hooks into system utilities like brightness and biometric login, and has great styling and widget support. You can even install full Linux-OS's in a sandbox via proot!
edit: add even more great apps
OsmAnd~
Makes navigating around easier especially as someone who likes walking.
Edit because somebody mentioned about the lack of description and link of apps:
OsmAnd~ is a FOSS alternative to Google Maps and uses OpenStreetMap for its data. You can download it here.
Organic Maps for fast FOSS raster maps
I keep trying OpenStreetMaps based mapping apps, but giving up on them because they can never seem to find locations I search for by address.
Syncthing, which syncs my files between my phone and computer. I can rip a music CD on my computer and it's instantly sent to my phone so I can listen to it on the bus or wherever.
There's so many I could list, I'll just mention 2 underrated ones I don't see mentioned as much:
LibreTube - Best YouTube client imo, has a very nice and modern interface, proxies videos through Piped for maximum privacy (No direct connections to Google are made), No ads/tracking, SponsorBlock + Return YouTube Dislikes, support for downloading videos, etc. It's everything I'd want and more out of a YouTube client.
URLCheck - Excellent app that allows you to preview what a URL is before you click it, includes tons of features such as scanning for malware, removing any tracking parameters, upgrading links from HTTP to HTTPS, etc. I can't recommend this app enough for the security, privacy, and general peace of mind it gives you.
Hm, nextcloud and DavX5 are crucial for me (file, calendar and contact sync)
Also Aegis as 2FA client and KeePassDX as PasswordManager (both synced via nextcloud)
I wont list all the messengers ^^'
Anuto TD: addictive tower defense game
Simple Gallery and Simple Filebrowser are awesome! Also KDE Connect, Davx, Catima and Etar, my favourite calendar app!
Oh yes Aegis Authenticator. Its so essential, I forgot. Plus Bitwarden Passwordmanager
No love for DNS66? Are there better ways to block ads now?
NewPipe for Sure. Normal YouTube apps is bloated as hell + NewPipe is very nice to listen music
NewPipe has only one problem: the inability to log into your Google account and keep your subscriptions and watch later playlist synced.
"Problem."*
Those of us who degoogled see this as a pro not a con.
I'd also blame youtube, iirc there is no way to export your playlists to a .csv, which could then be imported to something like newpipe easily. Of course, youtube doesn't want to let you do that because the only thing keeping people from newpipe is really this "sunken cost" aspect to it.
I want to degoogle, but I also want to keep track of which videos I've watched already across devices. Maybe Newpipe and similar apps need a self-hosted server companion app. Or maybe a plugin for existing server software, like I dunno, Jellyfin or Nextcloud or something. Maybe using RSS? I'm just brainstorming here...