I saw a post on reddit asking for open source android keyboards in recent years since a lot of the posts were older. One user recommended “Futo Keyboard”.
To be clear, I’m not affiliated with them but I’ve been trying them based on that reddit response and I just wanted to share here in case anyone else has been looking.
In short, this keyboard is about as close to awesome as you can get so far. Features I like:
- Feels like GBOARD
- Works fully offline
- Gesture typing (about 75% as accurate as GBoard)
- Built in offline speech to text (no third party engine needed to download
I’ve tried other options like heliboard and openboard and they are great too, but I think so far this has been the best I’ve tried and I wanted to recommend it on here in case anyone else is looking. Feel free to share any other setups or recommendations below!
EDIT: it was pointed out that it is source-available and not open source. Apologize for my initial assumption. The source and license can be viewed here: Futo Keyboard. It is fully open for non-commercial use. Anything commercial can have restrictions.
I have to point out that Futo is not open source, it’s source available, but yes it’s pretty good and I’ve been using it for a couple months.
Ah noted. Thanks for clarifying that. I found the source: Futo Keyboard and read the license. Sure enough it is open but restricted by commercial use. As long as it’s not for commercial use, there is no restrictions on using the source.
There’s also clauses about revoking your license if you try to sue them, and how you need to still include the system to pay them in your modified version.
Good catch thanks. I stopped at the commercial since it was the firat immediate tell of source available I saw. Maybe I put this post in the wrong community then.
I’ve been using Heliboard for quite a bit now. its very nice and simple. I’m not sure how it would do multiple languages however, as I’ve not tried it.
i absolutely recommend it though. great little keyboard.
I’m not sure how it would do multiple languages however, as I’ve not tried it.
As someone who types the majority of my thoughts in Frenglish, Heliboard is the only FOSS keyboard I’ve found that would remotely accommodate that while still having useful autocorrect.
I speak three languages (all of them badly), and I agree, I just have to long press space and select the language I’m typing in if I want correction or suggestions.
I’ve tried it. I like that they’re carrying the torch of OpenBoard, but I don’t like that swipe typing requires manually downloading a third party library.
Ive been jumping to and from Futo keyboard and Heliboard.
Futo has swipe typing which is nice in a pinch, yet I prefer Heliboard almost entirely. However, I also really really like Futo’s voice typing which ether comes bundled with Futo keyboard or you can install it separately to use with other keyboards, yet when I do this. Google voice typing keeps turning itself back on repalcing Futo voice. So I’m a bit stuck between these two currently.
Heliboard can have swipe typing. It relies on a closed source library though, so…
https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard?tab=readme-ov-file#features
- Glide typing (only with closed source library ☹️)
- library not included in the app, as there is no compatible open source library available
- can be extracted from GApps packages (“swypelibs”), or downloaded here (click on the file and then “raw” or the tiny download button)
I’ve been dailying the keyboard for a solid 4mths at this point.
As someone who types in more than one language, sometimes even using the English script to type, it’s mildly annoying in the autocorrect. But it’s actually really great for English typing atm. Other languages, I’m still looking forward to trying.
I did switch to an S23 last week and the Samsung Keyboard is so good that I haven’t been able to switch back to FUTO as of yet.
My only gripe with the Samsung keyboard is that their only alternative distribution is Dvorak, and by now I’m 100% a colemak user even on touch screens. So I use open board with swipe typing.
Thanks for the input. I sometimes use another language but it’s rare so I haven’t been able to try to on here. However I agree. While not perfect, the autocorrect and text prediction for English is quite good! Ive been always going back to gboard but hoping this one is good enough to stay on. Ill update this post as I use it longer.
While Gboard has better autocorrect, FUTO’s gestures and automatic punctuations became muscle memory in a way that made it difficult to get back to.
I’m gonna side step this conversation to point out nice name lolol
Lmaooo. Yes! Thank you so much 😂. It’s a reference to the MC’s catchphrase from Stein’s;Gate, an anime. He says El Psy Kongroo. I forget the logic behind it, but i thought that was a solid username 😂.
I’m currently using it as my daily driver (and typing this reply using it) , it’s great but +100MB of size for a keyboard is… unfavorable to me
I need one with JP IME support
I used AnySoft Keyboard until someone recommended Futo here on Lemmy. It’s been my daily driver for a couple of months now and I have to agree: It’s the best Open Source keyboard around, even if it’s technically still in alpha. It’s ridiculously good, even with languages other than English. It will nail German 20-character compound words first try and I haven’t seen any other keyboard do it this well.
Futo is not open source. Read its license.
Futo is open source. It’s not FOSS though.
They literally go out of their way to tell you they aren’t.
They are what’s called “Source-First” according to their own terminology
One of the things they say in that blog post that I think misses the point is that OSI-approved licenses don’t “fail to protect the developer”, they are literally built to pass the rights of the developer to the user, where they belong. Open source protects the user, full stop. The side effect of this is that corps can take advantage as they are also users - and this is why I personally fight so hard for the GPL license as it does prevent big corps from taking and not giving back.
FUTO is “Source-First” until they switch to a license that prioritizes the user over the developer. I believe the FUTO company’s public image is of service to their users, which is fantastic, we need more of that, but their license only reflects that partially.
I’ve tried that as well. I’ve pretty much gone through all open source recommendations and was suprised to just now hear about this one. Any issues you’ve ran into?
The positive aspects are that it’s highly customizable and supports a large number of language addons. The downside is that development is pretty much dead, the swipe feature not being very accurate and the autocorrect only working in English. There’s also a large amount of inconveniences and minor bugs that made it tedious to use in comparison to Futo.
