Mobile phones and tablets are increasingly becoming popular devices for browsing the internet, be it for chat, social networking, work or simply killing time on the internet. But data usage costs are quite high when not using a data plan and it’s easy to overuse the monthly data limit which can amount to huge monthly bills, so an app that can monitor your data usage for you and warn you when you are about to reach the limit would be pretty useful.

The Android Market is full of apps that help you monitor your data usage, so it can be quite daunting to browse and select one out of the many available. But fret not, as we have compiled a list of some of the best data usage monitoring apps on the Android Market. Read on to find out about them.

Onavo

Onavo is a data usage monitoring app with two really useful features. Thanks to a huge database of info, it automatically warns you if a new app that you downloaded is known to use up too much data, so you can be careful while using such apps. Another feature is the Data Plan Advice option, which gives you advice on better data plans from your carrier, depending upon your usage pattern. Other features include monitoring individual app data usage, a live data usage widget that shows which apps are using data at the moment, automatic blocking of 3G data once the limit is reached, and more.

My Data Manager

My Data Manager is a pretty simple data usage monitoring app which monitors data usage of each individual app, along with an indication of the total data usage at the top of the app. It monitors data usage for both home and roaming data plans, and of course data usage over Wi-Fi as well. A ‘Last 30 Days’ graph shows you the data used each day for the last 30 days. A simple homescreen widget shows the data used on mobile, roaming and Wi-Fi connections. A no-ads version of the app can be bought for $4.

3G Watchdog

This is perhaps one of the most well-known data usage monitoring apps for Android. Your data usage is displayed on the main screen, with separate indications of the total plan usage, and the week, month and the current day’s total usage. By setting quota counters, you can make sure you never go above the allowed quota. A traffic history graph shows you the usage for the current day or the total quota usage for the last 12 quota periods, and also gives you an option to export the usage info as a CSV file. Homescreen widgets let you watch the quota usage from the homescreen itself, and also let you enable and disable the data network. A Pro version with additional functionality is also available.

PhoneUsage

PhoneUsage is not just a data usage monitoring app as it monitors calls and texts usage as well, which makes it a pretty useful all-in-one monitoring app. The Home page shows the usage for calls, data and text messages for the current day as well as the current week and up to the usage of 2 previous months. A graphical view of all the usage is available as well. You can set limits on calls, data and texts, with the option to exclude certain call and text numbers from being counted in the limit. A simple homescreen widget is included for monitoring usage for all three as well. Ads can be removed by purchasing the Pro version.

Traffic Monitor

Traffic Monitor adds an integrated speed test and task manager so you can measure your internet speeds and also manage tasks from within the app, along with the usual features such as monitoring data usage, setting data usage limits,etc. Data usage of each individual app can be viewed in detail, with separate indication of data used over Wi-Fi and mobile network for each app. An integrated Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring function that measures the quality of your connection by measuring different variables like in-service time, out-of-service time, data connection duration, and more. A homescreen widget for monitoring data usage is included as well.

DU Meter

DU Meter is a pretty simple and bare-bones data usage monitoring app that uses very few system resources but does what it’s supposed to do quite well. The main page of the app shows the total data usage over both cellular and Wi-Fi connections, along with a graph of the cellular data usage for the last 7 days. A nice feature is the ability to display the current network data transfer speeds in the notification bar. Statistics for daily and monthly cellular and Wi-Fi usage can be viewed as well. Basic features such as setting monthly limits and traffic alerts are covered. Separate homescreen widgets for both cellular and Wi-Fi usage are included.

That brings us to the end of the roundup. The apps listed here are some of the best data usage monitoring apps in our opinion, so give them all a spin. Of course, the list is by no means exhaustive as there are many other alternatives available on the Android Market. Which app do you use for monitoring your data usage? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.