Update 28/02/2024: FAQ, context and infos
PLEASE, DONT SUGGEST APPS HERE. IF EVERYONE SUGGESTS APPS HERE, THIS WILL GET CLOGGED WITH THOSE SUGGESTIONS.
ANY SUGGESTIONS ABOUT APPS HERE WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE REASON WHY I'M NOT ACCEPTING SUGGESTIONS HERE, READ THE INFORMATION BELOW (FAQ, CONTEXT, AND INFOS)
However, every type of information, advice, critics, and suggestion, besides apps, is extremely welcome and useful.
If you want to be remembered or get notified when I open a thread to discuss updates, send me a DM / PM.
And if you want to know more about the context and other information about this megathread, consider reading the information below.
- FAQ (Frequently asked questions)
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- What is this?
During two months, starting in January 2024, I started opening threads to prepare this megahtread, with the intention of catching the opinions from all members of Lemmy about the FOSS apps they use daily and which apps they most like. You can see here, here, or here examples of threads I created. To gain agreement within the community, posts were discussed, downvoted, and upvoted. This was the process behind building it.
- Why do I see app A on this, but not app B? Why I’m not seeing here my favourite app?
The app selections were based on Lemmy's opinions, where they discussed, downvoted, and upvoted posts to gain strength and agreement among the community to enter the megathread. This project is not mine; it is ours. You don't see your favorite app because nobody suggested it. This is why I will open four threads per year to discuss updates and improvements.
- How and when can I contribute to megathread?
I will open four (4) threads per year (one in February, one in May, one in August, and another in November) to discuss updates and apps you want to see on Megathread. I will not accept app suggestions on this megathread. And I won’t consider them in the future either. If I accept suggestions here, the megathread will be clogged. However, every type of information, advice, critics, and suggestion, besides apps, is extremely welcome and useful.
- Why four times a year?
I created a poll to discuss how many times the megathread needed to be improved, and four times a year wins the poll. You can see it here.
- Which apps are plausible to enter the megathread?
Only apps with open code and with the fundamentals of open source. The apps are needed to be available to download on F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, or other platforms (like Github, GitLab, etc.). Open source apps only available on the PlayStore, will not be taken into account to enter the megathread.
- Who can contribute and update the megathread?
Everyone on Lemmy can contribute and help the megathread. This is a project from all Lemmys communities; it is not only mine. Is not restricted. I’m the one who updates this. However, all help is welcome. You can DM me with your help and questions.
- Context and infos
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The main objective was to get the opinions of community members in order to build a megathread with the best FOSS apps, according to their opinions. Taking into account that there are other types of lists spread across the internet, such as the Awesome FOSS Apps lists, I decided to create several threads to discuss with all members which apps should be on a final list to show to the Lemmy community. In short, show the present and future members the best apps according to the members' opinions and help other people discover applications related to the theme of open source for Android. Some of the descriptions published below were given by Lemmy members.
Threads discussion: Thread 1 | Thread 2 | Thread 3 | Thread 4 | Thread 5 | Thread 6 | Discussion 1 | Discussion 2
This megathread will be updated four times a year, and I will later create a thread to provide relevant opinions and advices to improve this work. ALL opinions from the Lemmy community matter and are the main reason this is moving forward.
This megathread is divided firstly into apps with mostly daily use for a person. In the second phase, there are apps that are dispensable for daily use, but can you can find them (extremely) useful. And finally, social media and related apps.
This app was suggested in every thread by almost all users here. The main objective of Obtainium is to catch updates from the main source of the app. It is extremely useful if you want your apps updated.
- Dialers
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Fossify is a fork from one of the developers of Simple Mobile Tools, after SMT has been sold. Very simple dialer app to make calls easily.
- SMS
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- QUIK (Github)
A fork from QKSMS, made by @octoshrimpy@sh.itjust.works | QUIK is an actively maintained fork since QKSMS was probably abandoned.
App to send and receive SMS made by Fossify. Very simple, as usual from Fossify development.
- Contacts
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A contact app with an SMS tool.
Another app from Fossify. Very simple and usable, as Fossify pretends and people want.
- Calculators
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Beautiful and simple app. You can do simple calculations and have some features like trigonometric functions or unit conversions.
You can do a lot of things with this app. Has more features than doing some calculations.
Very, very simple calculator app.
- Num++ (Github | IzzyOnDroid) DISCLAIMER: This app is not updated since 2020.
Able to represent expressions in “richtext” instead of a plain text line of numbers.
- Cameras
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- OpenCamera (SourceForge | F-Droid)
This lightweight app offers quite a few pro features, like RAW capture, customizable exposure bracketing/HDR, and noise reduction.
- Graphene OS Camera (Github)
It offers all the basic features you would expect from a camera. Has a QR code scan too.
- Calendars
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A very simple calendar with a dark and bright theme. You can expect another nice app from Fossify.
A beautiful and simple calendar app. Recommended by Lemmy users and FOSS enthusiasts.
- Note Calendar (Github | IzzyOnDroid)
Amazing app. Has a calendar and notes integrated. You can see calendar and make notes on it.
- File Managers
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I'm going to become repetitive by always saying the same thing. Yes, another app from Fossify. Very usable and simple as usual.
A simple and attractive Material Design file manager for Android.
- Galleries
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Yes, again. Gallery manager from Fossify with some tools, like image editing, cutting, and rotating. It doesn't have an editor video incorporated, though.
Aves can handle all sorts of images and videos. It doesn't have an editor video , though.
- Video and image editors
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Very simple and good app. Has features like trim, grayscale, resolution, scale, and rotate.
- Voice recorders
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A simple and basic voice recorder app.
- Notes, tasks and to-do list
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One of the most simple apps to make notes. If you just want to note simple things, this may fits you.
Markor aims to make an editor that is versatile, flexible, and lightweight. Utilizes simple markup formats like Markdown and todo.txt for note-taking and list management. It works with sync apps.
Secure note-taking and to-do app with synchronization capabilities for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.
- NotiNotes (Github | IzzyOnDroid)
A simple notes app that only lives in your QS and notification panels Quickly add, view, and edit your notes and show them as notifications.
Quillpad is a fork of the famous Quillnote, and it's a really nice alternative notes app.
Logseq offers a range of powerful tools for knowledge management, collaboration, PDF annotation, and task management, with support for multiple file formats.
Orgzly Revived is a fork community-maintained version of Orgzly, as the development of the original app is no longer active.
With privacy at its core, all notes are end-to-end encrypted by default. The Notesnook online notepad app has great note-taking features while being private.
Based on the original source code from the popular Astrid Tasks & To Do List, Tasks can be used entirely offline, or synchronized with Google Tasks, CalDAV, or EteSync.
- Vikunja (Github)
Think of Vikunja like the notebook you have with all your things to keep track of.
- Keyboards
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- HeliBoard (Github | IzzyOnDroid)
This is an OpenBoard fork made by Helium 314. Is actively maintained with the same features as OpenBoard.
This keyboard was created for those who ONLY need a keyboard and nothing more.
- FlorisBoard Beta (Github (pre-releases) | IzzyOnDroid)
Compared to the FlorisBoard full version, the FlorisBoard beta version receives updates and is maintained. On his github page, you can see the (pre-)releases for the FlorisBoard beta version.
This keyboard does not support layout customization yet. However, support some Asian languages.
A lightweight virtual keyboard. The main feature is that you can type more characters by swiping the keys towards the corners.
It is probably one of the most customizable keyboards available, with support for multiple languages.
- Music Players (Offline)
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Auxio is a local music player with a fast, reliable, and beautiful UI.
Easy to use and customizable. Supports folder browsing, a sleep timer, and a tag editor. It is a fork from phonograph app.
Metro is a fork of Retro Music with the Google Play API removed and all pro features unlocked.
Symphony is a lightweight and elegant music player that enhances your offline music experience.
Video and audio player that supports a wide range of formats for both local and remote playback. You may know this one.
The main focus of Odyssey is to create a music player that is optimized for speed.
- Vanilla Music (F-Droid)
App with a simple interface. Supports browsing by folder, queuing, and shake-to-skip.
Totally free, Phonograph Plus is a materially designed local music player app.
- Maps and micro-mapping
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- OsmAnd~ (F-Droid)
OsmAnd+ (or OsmAnd~) is a map and navigation application with access to the free, worldwide, and high-quality OpenStreetMap (OSM) data.
Organic Maps is a GPS navigation app with privacy, for drivers, hikers, and cyclists. The app features navigation with privacy - no location tracking or data collection.
This app finds incomplete and extendable data in your vicinity and displays it on a map as markers.
Made by DivestOS, GMaps WV is a WebView wrapper for using Google Maps without exposing your device. However, Navigation is not available. Only turn-by-turn direction list.
This editor does not make you think. Just go to a mall, and start Every Door. You'll see mapped shops around you: tap on the checkmark for any that are still there, and add shops that are not on the map.
- Weather and forecasting
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A beautiful, minimal, and fast app that uses the Open-Meteo API.
Weather app geared towards storm chasers, meteorologists and weather enthusiasts
- Breezy Weather (Github | F-Droid | IzzyOnDroid)
Breezy Weather is an app with a strong focus on design, with a simple, clean UI, smooth animations, and Material Design all over, plus lots of customizability.
If you are german or lives in Germany, this is for you, for sure.
- Rain (Github)
Weather app with VERY, very beautiful and kindly UI.
- Stores
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Aurora Store is an unofficial, FOSS client to Google Play with bare minimum features. Aurora allows users to download, update, and search for apps like the Play Store. It works perfectly fine with or without Google Play Services or MicroG. You don't need any Google account.
An F-Droid client with modern UI and an arsenal of extra features.
Another F-Droid client with Material UI.
- WebBrowsers
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Cromite, a Bromite fork with ad blocking and privacy enhancements.
- Mull (F-Droid | Divest OS Repo)
This is a privacy oriented and deblobbed web browser based on Mozilla technology. It enables many features upstreamed by the Tor Uplift project using preferences from the arkenfox-user.js project. It is recommended to install 'uBlock Origin'.
- 2FA Authenticators
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A free, secure and open source app for Android to manage your 2-step verification tokens.
- Bookmarking
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- Omnivore (Github)
Omnivore is an open source read-it-later solution for people who like reading.
- Device health and tools
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Find your Device with an SMS or online with the help of FMDServer. This applications goal is to track your device when it's lost.
Phyphox is an app that uses the sensors in a smartphone for physics experiments.
- Documents reader and editor
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Librera is an e-book reader for Android devices; it supports the following formats: PDF, EPUB, EPUB3, MOBI, DjVu, FB2, TXT, RTF, AZW, AZW3, HTML, CBZ, CBR, DOC, DOCX, and OPDS Catalogs.
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Fully featured, open source, privacy friendly email app for Android.
Another alternative e-mail app for Android, from Mozilla Thunderbird.
- Fitness, health and trackers
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The goal of ActivityWatch is simple: Enable the collection of as much valuable lifedata as possible without compromising user privacy.
Waistline is a libre calorie counter and weight tracker that allows the user to keep a diary of the food they eat and variations in their weight.
- Flashlights
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Modern flashlight app with dim functionality on Android 13+ . The full functionality of this app is ONLY AVAILABLE for devices which support the dim functionality of the flashlight (hardware limited).
- Launchers and icons
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- Lawnchair (Github) DISCLAIMER: This app is not updated since 2022.
Taking Launcher as a starting point, it ports Pixel Launcher features and introduces rich options for customization.
Arcticons are an icons packs for Android devices. With over 8000 icons, Arcticons is one of the largest free & open source icon-packs available.
- Music and streaming (Online)
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Music recognition application, that can help you quickly and accurately recognize a music track playing nearby you. Nice replace for Shazam.
A Material 3 YouTube Music client for Android, without any tracker.
Multilingual Android application for streaming music from YouTube Music. It was born as an extension of the functionality of ViMusic, which retains the general appearance.
Another Youtube Music app, free, open-source and zero trackers.
- Password managers
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- Bitwarden (Github | F-Droid Repo)
At home, at work, or on the go, Bitwarden easily secures all your passwords, passkeys, and sensitive information.
- Podcasts
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AntennaPod is a podcast manager and player that gives you instant access to millions of free and paid podcasts.
- Privacy and security
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This application acts as an intermediary when opening url links. When you do so, a window containing information about the url is displayed, allowing you to make changes to it as well.
DNS over HTTPS / DNS over Tor / DNSCrypt client, WireGuard proxifier, firewall, and connection tracker for Android.
NetGuard provides simple and advanced ways to block access to the internet - no root required.
Isolate your big brother app. This is a fork based on the excellent Island.
UntrackMe once set by default to open Twitter, YouTube and Instagram links will transform them into Nitter, Invidious and Bibliogram links and delegate the action to another app.
- Public Transport
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Non-profit app to make the use of public transport as easy as possible for everybody.
- Sync
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A Syncthing Wrapper for Android.
Access & share your files, calendars, contacts, mail & more from any device, on your terms.
KDE Connect is a multi-platform app that allows your devices to communicate (eg: your phone and your computer).
- Text To Speech (TTS)
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RHVoice is a free and open source speech synthesizer.
An on-device voice IME (keyboard) for Android using the Vosk library. This project provides a voice keyboard using Vosk. This app requires a Vosk model to run.
- Torrents and downloads
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Free and open-source application for controlling qBittorrent on your servers.
Video/Audio Downloader for Android, based on yt-dlp, designed with Material You.
- Uncategorized apps and important utilities
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- Showly OSS (Github | IzzyOnDroid)
Fork of the Showly app without Google Trackers. Modern Android TV Shows Tracker.
Free and open-source coffee brew timer. Customizable time settings and an easy-to-use interface.
Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. Can greatly decrease your time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you learn.
Linphone is an open source softphone for voice and video over IP calling and instant messaging. It is fully SIP-based, for all calling, presence and IM features.
- PhoneProfilePlus (Github | IzzyOnDroid)
PhoneProfilesPlus allows automatically or with one click configuring the device for life situations (at home, at work, in your car, sleep outside, etc).
A terminal emulator application for Android extendible by variety of packages.
- Youtube
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It uses the Piped API to load data and play videos and thus needs no YT account and no Google Services on your device.
- Newpipe (Github | F-Droid | F-Droid Repo)
One of the big ones to watch youtube.
A FLOSS app to let you browse YouTube, NicoNico and BiliBili freely.
Android client application for invidious, the privacy focused youtube front end.
~~Media app endeavours creating infrastructure for creators to have their content hosted by someone else but at the same time having creators retain full ownership of their content.~~
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- Infinity (Github | IzzyOnDroid)
Does not have any ads and it features a clean UI and smooth browsing experience on Reddit.
Stealth is an account-free, privacy-oriented, and feature-rich Reddit client. It provides features from Reddit, without the need for an account. In fact, the app doesn't even let you log in with a Reddit account.
- Mastodon and Pleroma
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Husky is a lightweight and fast client for Pleroma, Mastodon and other social networks that implement Mastodon API.
A multifunctional Android client to access the distributed Fediverse, like Pleroma, Mastodon, Misskey or Peertube.
Lightweight client app for Mastodon.
- Twitter/X
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A lightweight client app for Twitter, where you ONLY can see content from it if you have a Twitter/X account.
- Lemmy
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THE_MASTERMIND created a megathread about Lemmy FOSS apps here.
Agreed fennec at least should be listed