OpenBoard icon
OpenBoard icon

OpenBoard

 61 likes

OpenBoard is a 100% foss keyboard based on AOSP, with no dependency on Google binaries, that respects your privacy.

OpenBoard screenshot 1
OpenBoard screenshot 2
+2
OpenBoard screenshot 3

License model

  • FreeOpen Source

Application type

Country of Origin

  • IT flagItaly
  • European Union flagEU

Platforms

  • Android
  • Android Tablet
  • F-Droid
Discontinued

Last commit was in December 2022, and it's not available in the Google Play Store anymore. HeliBoard icon HeliBoard is an active fork

4.4 / 5 Avg rating (21)
61likes
14comments
0news articles

Features

Suggest and vote on features

Properties

  1.  Privacy focused
  2.  Lightweight
  3.  Customizable

Features

  1.  On-screen Keyboard
  2.  Emoji Text support
  3.  Input Method
  4.  Dark Mode
  5.  Voice input
  6.  Swift
  7.  Ad-free

 Tags

  • FOSS
  • Emoji
  • os-utilities
  • ime
  • input-method-editors
  • virtual-keyboard
  • input-method-editor
  • input-methods
  • input-method-editing

OpenBoard News & Activities

Highlights All activities

Recent News

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Recent activities

  • Schnatt_App rated OpenBoard  
    3 months ago
  • Schnatt_App liked OpenBoard
    3 months ago
  • App icon
    justarandom added OpenBoard as alternative to N Keyboard
    3 months ago
  • bobbyhiltz, namdx1987, 1sfasak and Sciabbarabba liked OpenBoard
    3 months ago
  • muhammadfarag liked OpenBoard
    7 months ago
  • App icon
    thesuckcooker added OpenBoard as alternative to UniKey
    7 months ago
  • danielol1 rated OpenBoard  
    8 months ago
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OpenBoard information

  • Developed by

    IT flagdslul / Daniele Laudani
  • Licensing

    Open Source (GPL-3.0) and Free product.
  • Written in

  • Rating

    Average rating of 4.4 (21 ratings)
  • Alternatives

    29 alternatives listed
  • Supported Languages

    • English

AlternativeTo Category

OS & Utilities

GitHub repository

  •  2,646 Stars
  •  267 Forks
  •  427 Open Issues
  •   Updated May 16, 2024 
View on GitHub

Our users have written 14 comments and reviews about OpenBoard, and it has gotten 61 likes

OpenBoard was added to AlternativeTo by Nonon on Jan 15, 2020 and this page was last updated Feb 14, 2024.

Comments and Reviews

   
 Post comment/review
Comment summary: OpenBoard is praised for its open-source nature, privacy focus, and robust feature set, including user ergonomics like spacebar swiping for cursor movement and customizable clipboard history. While users appreciate functionalities like spell correction and haptic feedback, some miss features like glide typing, emoji prediction, and automatic language detection. It competes closely with other FOSS options like FlorisBoard. A fork with further enhancements is recommended.
Top Positive Comment
headlines
Aug 20, 2023
5

Currently, the best version of OpenBoard to use is Helium314's fork, which is still being maintained: https://github.com/Helium314/openboard (Update: Helium314's fork of OpenBoard has been renamed to HeliBoard icon HeliBoard)

To enable gesture typing, download Google's gesture typing library at [https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard/tree/master/app/src/main/jniLibs/arm64-v8a](https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard/tree/master/app/src/main/jniLibs/arm64-v8a) and then import it by opening the OpenBoard settings app, going to "Advanced", and then choosing "Load gesture typing library". Note: Google's library is proprietary and not open source.

kurifoxen
Dec 22, 2023
0

Its the best open source keyboard :)

inson1
Dec 5, 2023
1
gbo
Oct 1, 2023
1

I come from years of using SwiftKeys, both before and after Microsoft acquisition. I started wanting to change after noticing that SwiftKeys systematically crashed when opening big files (I initially thought it was the editor's fault or the Android OS limitation, but no, it was the keyboard!). So I decided to change for a FLOSS alternative.

One of my main condition was that it needed to support Colemak, which I consider one of the fastest layout to type on mobile. I tried all available keyboards, and long story short, OpenBoard is the best one hands down as of September 2023, by far. The only contenders are FlorisBoard and The Hacker's Keyboard, but they both lack word correction/prediction.

OpenBoard does not seem special on the first try, but after weeks of continuous use, I noticed some incredible hidden features, for example :

  • the possibility to hold the spacebar to move the cursor left and right, same for holding the backspace key to delete not just one character but a precise selection by swiping,
  • that on the special characters page, you can hold keys even if there is no hint that it is possible, you will get the other characters you can also get more slowly by going to the second page of special characters,
  • that the clipboard history is configurable so that you can retain copied text for up to 120 min instead of the default 20min

And I forget others but already you can see that a lot of thoughts were given to user ergonomy.

It does not support swiping unfortunately, but it does support words prediction and correction, and is multilingual (but contrary to SwiftKey it does not support multiple languages simultaneously, you have to switch to the language you want to be able to correct, but it's very fast there is a language switch key just on the left of the spacebar).

And best of all, it can handle huge text files! Since I switched, I can write notes of seemingly infinite length in Markor (an opensource Markdown notes editor). And it's always fast, whereas for big documents, SwiftKey (when it could still handle the big but not enormous documents) would be VERY slow to open and react to inputs with big delays, on the other hand OpenBoard is always incredibly fast.

So I can only recommend this awesome keyboard with lots of support for various languages and layouts, and the only FLOSS one with corrections/predictions support.

/EDIT: Since first writing this review, I came across a more up to date fork that is still being currently developed by one of the original devs, and it implements a LOT of new features, including much improved dictionaries and true multilanguage dictionaries (eg we can combine german and english or any other pair!), emojis and math symbols dictionaries (ie, can predict emojis from raw text!) and it also supports swiping using the Google's proprietary implementation (because no opensource implementation exists currently). So I strongly recommend using the actively maintained fork: https://github.com/Helium314/openboard

Sam Lander
Jul 5, 2023
0

It's a good privacy keyboard, but not better than Gboard (firewalled from internet), and it's 3-5x as large as other privacy keyboards.

João Lourenço
Jun 28, 2023
0

Currently the best FOSS keyboard, followed closely by florisboard. This one is missing swipe type and automatic language selection to be perfect

VB22
Dec 29, 2022
1

A great privacy alternative to Gboard!

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What is OpenBoard?

OpenBoard is a 100% foss keyboard based on AOSP, with no dependency on Google binaries, that respects your privacy.

Features:

  • Spell correction
  • Themes
  • Emojis