Grab, which is more than a taxi app
Rides, from a compact car up to a thirty-seat bus. Food delivery. And GrabPay, which is accepted almost everywhere including hawker centres.
GrabPay can be topped up from a crypto wallet in USDC or USDT, which makes it the single most useful app on this list for anyone arriving with stablecoins and no local bank.
Set your payment method up before you land. Doing it in the back of a car with one bar of signal is not fun.
The delivery apps
Deliveroo is the reliable one, with a tighter and better list of restaurants.
Foodpanda covers more ground and costs less, at the price of waiting longer.
Both deliver to hotels without drama. Give the lobby, not the room.
Everything else
Lazada is what Amazon would be here, with RedMart inside it for groceries. If you forgot a charger, it arrives faster than you can walk to a mall.
Google Maps handles transit, live train times and walking routes better than any local alternative.
TADA and CDG Zig as price checks against Grab. Two minutes to install, and they pay for themselves the first time it rains at kick-out.
What you can skip
You do not need a separate transit app or a stored-value card. Your contactless card or phone works on every train and bus.
You do not need a VPN. Nothing is blocked.
You do not need a translation app. English is an official language and is what business, signage and government run in.
Every app here needs data the moment you land, which is the one thing the airport Wi-Fi is worst at during a conference week.
