A list of interesting and open source Android apps.
- App Repositories
- Launchers
- Messaging
- Web Browser
- Social Media
- Video
- Photography
- Audio
- Note Taking
- Task Manager
- File Sync
- Utilities
- Productivity
- Security
- Terminal
- Other
F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.
Yalp Store lets you download apps from Google Play Store as apk files. It searches for updates of installed apps when it starts and lets you search for other apps. Thats it. Yalp saves downloaded apks to your default download folder so you can later open it in your favorite file manager app and tap each one to install the apps.
KISS is a blazingly fast launcher for android requiring nearly no memory to run.
Search through your apps, contacts and settings lightning fast. No more time spent trying to find the app you want to launch: enter a few characters of the name and hit enter. Need to call someone? Don't meddle with the call log, just give three letters of their name and push the "phone" button. KISS becomes smarter and smarter as you use it, pushing forward results you're more likely to select.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
OpenLauncher is an open source Android launcher project, started from scratch. We aim to create a powerful and community driven Android launcher.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Privacy is possible, Signal makes it easy. Using Signal, you can communicate instantly while avoiding SMS fees, create groups so that you can chat in real time with all your friends at once, and share media or attachments all with complete privacy. The server never has access to any of your communication and never stores any of your data.
Github | Google Play | APK
Silence (formerly SMSSecure) is an SMS/MMS application that allows you to protect your privacy while communicating with friends. Using Silence, you can send SMS messages and share media or attachments with complete privacy.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security. It’s super-fast, simple, secure and free. Telegram seamlessly syncs across all of your devices and can be used on desktops, tablets and phones alike. You can send an unlimited amount of messages, photos, videos and files of any type (.doc, .zip, .pdf, etc.). Telegram groups have up to 5000 people and you can create channels to broadcast messages to an unlimited number of subscribers.
"It's worth a mention that Telegram's server side is not open-source. However, that doesn't really matter for security purposes, because the end-to-end encryption between client-side end users is tested and works flawlessly in Telegram regardless of the software on the server." — enigmatoid
"It's been shown that Telegram is very insecure and shouldn't be used if security and privacy are your primary concerns, which is something that Telegram has (and still does) advertised as a major feature." — JackDostoevsky
Conversation is a free and open source Jabber/XMPP client for Android 4.0+ smartphones that has been optimized to provide a unique mobile experience. Easy to use, reliable, battery friendly. With built-in support for images, group chats and e2e encryption.
Kontalk is a secure instant messenger, allowing you to send and receive text, image and voice messages (other file types coming soon) to and from other Kontalk users completely free of charge.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Antox is an Android 4+ client for Tox created by Mark Winter. It aims to bring the full multimedia support Tox offers to your device, although it's still currently in heavy development. Antox is currently available for alpha testing on Google Play and F-Droid.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid repo
Jitsi for Android is an Android port of the Jitsi project: The most feature-rich communicator with support for encrypted audio/video, chat and presence over SIP and XMPP.
Hack.chat is a minimal, distraction-free chat application. Create a chatroom with just a name, there are no preset channel so just enter a chatroom name and a nickname, share the link and communicate.
Github | Google Play | Google Play
Riot is a simple and elegant collaboration environment that gathers all of your different conversations and app integrations into one single app.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
K-9 Mail is an open-source e-mail client with search, IMAP push email, multi-folder sync, flagging, filing, signatures, bcc-self, PGP, mail on SD & more! K-9 supports IMAP, POP3 and Exchange 2003/2007 (with WebDAV).
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
ProtonMail is the world’s largest encrypted email service with over 1 million users. The ProtonMail secure email app for Android brings easy-to-use email encryption to your mobile device by seamlessly integrating PGP end-to-end encryption. ProtonMail also provides a modern user interface with a full set of innovative features such as customizable swipe gestures and the ability to send expiring emails.
Since we were founded by CERN scientists in 2013, we have been joined by citizens from around the globe who have supported our mission to protect online privacy. Our mobile app was made possible by a record-breaking $550,000 donation campaign. With the ProtonMail app, you can now create your own free ProtonMail email account and start experiencing the secure email of the future.
Lightning is a simple, fast web browser that focuses on design, security, and efficiency. It uses material design, doesn't track you, give you lots of options to protect your privacy, and does it in under 2MB. It gets out of the way of the user.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Brave has joined forces with LinkBubble to bring you a faster web - by blocking the ads and trackers that get in your way plus all the features you love from LinkBubble. Just go to the settings to turn on or off privacy features like ad blocking, tracker protection and Https Everywhere.
Recognized in Google Play's Best Apps of 2014, Brave (formerly known as LinkBubble) has unique features to make internet browsing faster and more seamless. When you click on a link in an app, Brave loads that webpage in the background, leaving you free to keep using your current app - rather than wasting your time watching pages load.
Brave is designed for both speed and security, so you can enjoy a lightning fast browsing experience without popups, malware and other annoyances. All Brave browsers are open source, so you can view our code and even make contributions.
Orbot is a free proxy app that empowers other apps to use the internet more securely. Orbot uses Tor to encrypt your Internet traffic and then hides it by bouncing through a series of computers around the world. Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis. Orbot creates a truly private mobile internet connection.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Orfox is a new privacy-enhanced browser for Android, based on Mozilla Firefox, configured by default to work with Orbot: Tor for Android.
Orfox is built from the same source code as Tor Browser (which is built upon Firefox), but with a few minor modifications to the privacy enhancing features to make them compatible with Firefox for Android and the Android operating system. Orfox requires Orbot app for Android to connect to the Tor network.
In as many ways as possible, we adhere to the design goals of Tor Browser, by supporting as much of their actual code as possible, and extending their work into the additional Android components of Firefox for Android.
Twidere is a powerful Twitter/StatusNet/Fanfou app for Android 4.0+, which gives you a full Material experience and nearly complete (or even better) Twitter feature.
Slide for Reddit is a rock-solid material-designed unofficial browser for Reddit with an easy to use UI and tons of customization. Slide is ad-free, open source, and is packed with many unique features.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
RedReader is an unofficial client for the news site reddit.com.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
NewPipe is a lightweight YouTube front-end for Android. It doesn't need the YouTube-API or any Google Play Services, as NewPipe only parses the YouTube website in order to gain the information it needs.
Open Camera is a fully featured and completely free Camera app for Android phones and tablets.
SourceForge | Google Play | F-Droid
Aperture Gallery is an open source material design gallery. No distractions from your photos, and no heavy weight from loading. Personalize it to your liking by changing colours and by going into dark mode. Based on an old build of Impression by Aidan Follestad, Daniel Chao, and Marlon Jones.
"Due to an expired keystore Keystore, Aperture Gallery is being replaced by a new version, and this will now be known as Aperture Classic. I will focus on developing this new version of Aperture, and will add in more features and additions as my time permits. Aperture Gallery (Known as Project: EVO to beta and debug testers) will be released on the Google Play store in the coming months."
Tomahawk, the critically acclaimed multi-source music player, is now available on Android. Given the name of an artist, album or song Tomahawk will find the best available source and play it - whether that be from Spotify, Deezer, GMusic, Soundcloud, Tidal, Official.fm, Jamendo, Beets, Ampache, Subsonic or your phone’s local storage. Tomahawk for Android also syncs your history, your loved tracks, artists, albums and your playlists to/from the desktop version of Tomahawk via our new music community, Hatchet. On Hatchet you can hear your friends' favorite tracks and see what they're currently listening to.
AntennaPod is a podcast manager and player that gives you instant access to millions of free and paid podcasts, from independent podcasters to large publishing houses such as the BBC, NPR and CNN. Add, import and export their feeds hassle-free using the iTunes podcast database, gPodder, OPML files or simple RSS URLs. Save effort, battery power and mobile data usage with powerful automation controls for downloading episodes (specify times, intervals and WiFi networks) and deleting episodes (based your favourites and delay settings). But most importantly: Download, stream or queue episodes and enjoy them the way you like with adjustable playback speeds, chapter support and a sleep timer.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Writeily is a minimalist Markdown editor for Android. Simply and elegantly compose notes in markdown or plain text. Organize by folders, save and access files from external storage, and restrict access with a PIN lock.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Omni-Notes is a note taking open-source application aimed to have both a simple interface but keeping smart behavior.
The project was created by the absence of such applications compatible with old phones and old versions of Android that would propose, however, an attractive look and aligned with the most recent design of the Google operating system.
Simplenote is an easy way to keep notes, lists, ideas, and more. Keep notes on the web, your mobile device, and your computer. Find notes quickly with instant searching and simple tags. Share a list, post some instructions, or publish your thoughts.
Standard Notes is a simple notes app that delivers only the essentials in note-taking. It's fast, syncs your notes on almost every device, supports strong encryption and privacy, gives you 100% data ownership, and supports custom extensions like Markdown and Dropbox Sync.
Mirakel is an easy to use and lightweight To-Do App for your Android Phone or Tablet. Become the most efficient & effective Dev with this task list for the greatest developers in the universe. Get your things done with a strictly organised workflow.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Tasks is free and open source task management software based on the same code as Astrid.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Syncthing replaces proprietary sync and cloud services with something open, trustworthy and decentralized. Your data is your data alone and you deserve to choose where it is stored, if it is shared with some third party and how it's transmitted over the Internet.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Seafile is an enterprise file hosting platform with high reliability and performance. Put files on your own server. Sync and share files across different devices, or access all the files as a virtual disk.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Amaze File Manager is a light and smooth file manager following the Material Design guidelines.
Features:
Basic features like cut, copy, delete, compress, extract etc. easily accessible Work on multiple tabs at same time Multiple themes with cool icons Navigation drawer for quick navigation App Manager to open, backup, or directly uninstall any app Quickly access history, access bookmarks or search for any file Root explorer for advanced users
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Ghost Commander is a file manager with two panels for the Android™ platform. Its development was inspired by the famous (Norton|Midnight|Total) Commander desktop applications, so if you are familiar with those great programs, you will find Ghost Commander a familiar and very convenient environment.
As was said above, it has two separate panels, both of them able to show files from different locations. What does that give you? For example, when you need to copy files from one folder to another, you just select the files in one panel and the target in the other, then hit the '5' key (either on the physical keyboard or on the toolbar). That's it. No need to do such boring steps as copying the files to the clipboard, navigating to the place you want them to be copied to, pasting and then going back.
All the main file operations in this application are bound to numerical keys, with the same numbers as in the well-known prototype applications (e.g.: "F5 copy" is just '5', "F6 move" is '6'). If your device is not enriched with a physical keyboard, no problem, Ghost Commander features a customizable toolbar which has all the often-used commands collected in one place.
SourceForge | Google Play | F-Droid
Etar Calendar is a material designed calendar based on the ASOP calendar.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
DAVdroid is the only all-in-one synchronization solution for your contacts (CardDAV), calendars (CalDAV) and your tasks (based on VTODO). The app is easy to set up and integrates perfectly with your favorite calendar/contacts app (including default apps). It can also be used seperately, if you either have CalDAV, CardDAV or only Tasks.
GitLab | Google Play | F-Droid
KDE Connect is a project that aims to communicate all your devices. For example, with KDE Connect you can receive your phone notifications on your computer, or just use your phone as a remote control for your desktop. To achieve this, KDE Connect implements a secure communication protocol over the network, and allows any developer to create plugins on top of it. Currently there are KDE Connect clients on KDE, Android and Blackberry, and soon we will support iPhone as well.
Source | Google Play | F-Droid
Financius - Expense Manager is a simple application that helps you log and track your expenses and keep an eye on your balance.
OsmAnd (OSM Automated Navigation Directions) is a map and navigation application with access to the free, worldwide, and high-quality OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. All map data can be stored on your device's memory card for offline use. Via your device's GPS, OsmAnd offers routing, with optical and voice guidance, for car, bike, and pedestrian. All the main functionalities work both online and offline (no internet needed).
Transportr is the public transport companion that respects your privacy and your freedom. Transportr is a non-profit app developed by people around the world to make using public transport as easy as possible wherever you are. Currently, it works best in Europe, but also supports many places world-wide. If you live in an unsupported area, consider adding it to Transportr. It finds directions from your home, your current position or a given station to wherever you want to go. You can also save entire trips as favorites and find next trips with one click. Discover nearby stations and show upcoming departures including the delays (if there are any).
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Android firewall AFWall+ is an advanced iptables editor (GUI) for Android. It provides fine-grained control over which Android apps are allowed to access the network. The original codebase was derived from DroidWall by Rodrigo Rosauro. DroidWall was sold to AVAST in December 2011, and is no longer actively maintained.
AdAway is an ad blocker that uses the hosts file. The hosts file contains a list of mappings between hostnames and IP addresses. When an app requests an ad, that request is directed to 127.0.0.1 which does nothing. There are options to run a web server to respond to blocked hostnames and to direct requests to the IP address of your choosing. You can download hosts files from the app but it is possible to use your own and to add certain sites to the white- and black-lists.
Master Password is not another password manager. This app will replace all your passwords with new strong passwords generated from your new master password; passwords are stored nowhere and need no sync, cloud or backups. This app will securely generate strong and unique passwords for any purpose, in a way that nobody can log or trace. Better yet, even if you somehow lose everything, you can effortlessly recreate all your passwords.
AIMSICD is an Android app to detect IMSI-Catchers. These devices are false mobile towers (base stations) acting between the target mobile phone(s) and the real towers of service providers. As such they are considered a Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attack. This surveillance technology is also known as "StingRay", "Cellular Interception" and alike.
OpenKeychain helps you communicate more privately and securely. It uses encryption to ensure that your messages can be read only by the people you send them to, others can send you messages that only you can read, and these messages can be digitally signed so the people getting them are sure who sent them. OpenKeychain is based on the well established OpenPGP standard making encryption compatible across your devices and systems.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
FreeOTP is a two-factor authentication application for systems utilizing one-time password protocols. Tokens can be added easily by scanning a QR code. FreeOTP implements open standards: HOTP and TOTP. This means that no proprietary server-side component is necessary: use any server-side component that implements these standards. We recommend FreeIPA.
Terminal Emulator for Android is a terminal emulator for communicating with the built-in Android shell. It emulates a reasonably large subset of Digital Equipment Corporation VT-100 terminal codes, so that programs like "vi", "Emacs" and "NetHack" will display properly.
Termux is a terminal emulator and Linux environment bringing powerful terminal access to Android.
Ready to go. Termux works directly with no rooting or setup required. At first start a minimal base system is installed automatically - you decide what to do next.
Secure. Access remote servers using the ssh client from OpenSSH. Termux combines powerful standard packages with accurate terminal emulation in a beautiful open source solution.
Feature packed. Take your pick between bash, fish or zsh and nano, emacs or vim. Grep through your SMS inbox. Access API endpoints with curl and use rsync to store backups of your contact list on a remote server.
Customizable. Install what you want through the Apt package management system known from Debian and Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Why not start with installing git and syncing your dotfiles?
Explorable. Have you ever sat on a bus and thought about exactly which arguments tar accepts? Packages available in Termux are the same as those on Mac and Linux - install man pages on your phone and read them in one session while experimenting with them in another.
With batteries included. Can you imagine a more powerful yet elegant pocket calculator than a readline-powered python console? Up-to-date versions of perl, python, ruby and node.js are all available.
Ready to scale up. Connect a bluetooth keyboard and hook up your device to an external display if you need to - Termux supports keyboard shortcuts and has full mouse support.
Tinkerable. Develop by compiling C files with clang or gcc and build your own projects with makefiles or cmake. Both gdb and strace are available if you get stuck and need to debug.
Github | Google Play | F-Droid
Google I/O is a developer conference held each year with two days of deep technical content featuring technical sessions and hundreds of demonstrations from developers showcasing their technologies.
This project is the Android app for the conference. The app supports devices running Android 4.0+, and is optimized for phones and tablets of all shapes and sizes.
WordPress for Android puts the power of publishing in your hands, making it easy to create and consume content. Write, edit, and publish posts to your site, check stats, and get inspired with great posts in the Reader. What’s more? It’s open source. WordPress for Android supports WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress.org sites running WordPress 3.5 or higher.
Feel free to add cool open source Android apps which would be missing from this list or to correct any mistake you could spot.