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.

  • @erer@lemm.ee
    22•3 months ago

    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.

    • @JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      9•3 months ago

      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.

      • @underscores@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        10•3 months ago

        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.

        • @JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
          3•3 months ago

          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.

  • jevans ⁂English
    4•3 months ago

    I’ve started using Thumb-Key recently. I’m still very slow on it, but it is interesting, so I’m trying to give it a fair shake.

  • ElPussyKangaroo
    3•3 months ago

    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.

    • @dustyData@lemmy.world
      3•3 months ago

      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.

      • ElPussyKangaroo
        1•3 months ago

        I see. I was brought up on QWERTY so I have never actually tried to change the keyboard type.

    • @JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      2•3 months ago

      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.

      • ElPussyKangaroo
        2•3 months ago

        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.

          • ElPussyKangaroo
            1•3 months ago

            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 😂.

  • @fievel@lemm.ee
    3•3 months ago

    Ok done a bit the reverse as many here: came from Heliboard and tested out FUTO (thanks to this post and some others telling it was great). And indeed, it works pretty well, better than Heliboard, especially in English (~40% of my use on Android - I’m French native speaker so most messaging is in French and I use English for some search, lemmy,…). So that’s say in French, futo is not as good as in English (suggestions are often less accurate than in English) but it’s still better than Heliboard. The swipe works better too (and doesn’t require an external (proprietary) library). The only drawbacks I see until now is the limitation to 3 suggestions in the suggestions bar, with Heliboard there was a 3 dot menu giving more suggestions and the lack of spellchecker.

  • @Srootus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2•3 months ago

    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.

    • @thisismyname@lemm.eeEnglish
      5•3 months ago

      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)
  • Killercat103
    1•3 months ago

    I’m daily driving florisboard. Was impressed that it even had a kurdish layout.