Is there any closed source android app that you wish had a good open source alternative?
I'm currently looking to develop an open source app that can help somebody. I'm currently out of ideas, so I'd like to heard if from you guys.
Sorry if it seems to lazy to ask for ideas like that, I just thought that I could do it since the result will be a free app.
It would be a huge undertaking, but a Fitness and Health tracker / aggregator that could replace Google Fit and the likes.
I really can't bear how Google, Apple, Samsung, and all these big companies are the primary holders of our most intimate information. I've put some measures in place to limit who gets what, but it would be a huge boon to be the sole maintainer of my own info.
The problem is that the various apps and devices which report data won't immediately support syncing with a FOSS upstart...
The app I use for grabbing my weight and BMI can only sync with a few other apps. The app I use for calorie and diet tracking can likewise only sync with a few apps. They happen to have Google fit in common, so I use that as an intermediary to transfer weight to the calorie/diet app. All my steps, exercise, and sleep stay in Zepp, separate from them all.
It sure would be nice to have one service/application to rule them all and a secure method of storing one's own personal information without having to give it to the tech companies. Sure, use one of the many cloud services but encrypt all the data so that they can't steal it. Yadda yadda.
One can dream.
I develop a self-hosted service designed to do exactly this! It's not quite finished yet, but it's at the point where enough functionality works that it can be used for testing.
https://github.com/connervieira/HealthBox
The docs/USAGE.md file gives an overview of how HealthBox works. Feel free to poke around in the other docs/ files as well.
More than once I've wondered if I can make something look like google fit to other apps, obviously would have to be on a degoogled rom, which limits its utility for a wider audience.
would probably never happen considering how hippa compliance and privacy
Fitness data is typically provided by services like Google Fit as non-diagnostic non-medical information. Therefore HIPPA compliance is not required.
https://developers.google.com/fit/terms#hipaa_use_limitations
Obsidian.
Markor is a great open source markdown editor for android, but I wish we had some decent WYSIWYG options, like obsidian, typora, etc.
Doesn't have exactly the same features but I've simply been using Logseq syncing my notes with Syncthing
Joplin already does a great job for this, at least for notes.
I used Joplin extensively for ~2 years, but I was constantly put off by the desktop applications UI and how my notes was stored in SQLite. The move to obsidian felt natural and I felt more in ownership over my files in their existing structure. Granted, obsidian is closed source and could go rogue, but when that happens, I am prepared to jump ship without too much pain.
Logseq is pretty close
I am not an excessive note-taking guy, but I am using Notesnook for some time now and it does everything I needed so far.
Seems okay, but doesn't allow editing of local files / folders, it wants you to use their paid sync service. Also its javascript / electron, not native android.
Logseq has an Android version, right?
yeah, and the UI is absolutely atrocious.
One of those "smart" alarms that monitor and graph your sleep. E.g movement, sounds, snorings, sleep talking etc.
At a minimum one that wakes you up in the 30 minute window of your lightest sleep phase
I paid for AMdroid because I can set profiles, Geo fence, have math problems to turn off alarms, fade in music, turn on my flashlight... All the bells and whistles. I would love a FOSS version, but many try to be single feature. I like all the things.
SleepAsAnAndroid as well a broad support for generic smart watches
broad support for generic smart watches
Gadgetbridge is pretty well on it's way to this. They roll out support for new devices monthly it seems like. Of course there are always feature X and Y that fitbit or garmin does that it doesn't, but it's quite an impressive project. I use it with a pebble 2 HR.
I built an open source app a while back that had some similar functionality to sleep as android called "Go to Sleep". Haven't updated it for a long time, always wanted to add more things
My banking apps. They are the only reason I can't fully de-google myself.
My philosophy is if I can use a web page for it, I won't install an app (couple of exceptions, but a good rule). Less convenient, more secure.
As KMFDM have it, "Those who sacrifice liberty for security Deserve neither and will lose both"
God, you know what I really wish I could do?
Run an Android VM on my phone. Imagine being able to do whatever you want with your device and still having a "stock" device for those pesky apps without having to actually have two phones.
It is seemingly possible, but the only app I've ever seen do it was "VMOS": a proprietary app, impossible to trust.
Nova launcher - there isn't a good one for one FOSS replacement. Every launcher I tried from fdroid has at least one shortcoming (if not more).
Everyone I've tried from the Play store feels too basic compared to Nova or their rating is too low because of bugs.
Edit: in hindsight it looks like I'm a paid shill for Nova. This isn't the case at all. I've been looking at launchers for the past few weeks as I recently realised I've had the same set up style for over a decade. I don't want to be the person stuck in the past doing stuff the slower and archaic ways when there are newer and better ways of doing things. I currently have over 20 launchers installed on my phone and I've been slowly trying some.
I really like Kvaesitso though I'll admit I keep going back to Nova
Yeah, Hyperion is the closest I've found. Also what I'm currently using
Doesn't look like Hyperion is open source :(
Until there's a FOSS version of Nova, I guess I'll keep using Nova and have my firewall block its outgoing traffic.
It currently has a rating of 3.7. It looks like it has a lot of bugs.
Discord. I hate that premium costs so much and all the ads they put in place to sell useless junk features.
Google maps. So open street maps but with reviews like maps has. A few days ago people suggested apps, but they lack reviews. I disagree that they are useless.
Discord needs to die in a fire, so much knowledge lost... But their momentum is something awful.
Discord has an alternative called Revolt that is open source. It has all the premium features in discord for free, but is still in early stages I'd say.
even if alternatives existed it would still be a hassle to convert friends to it unless it is better in every way.
Yeah this is the biggest issue.
I use Mumble + XMPP with an IRC gateway to cover everything voice & chat related …but there are plenty of options to replace Discord, you just need to let folks know you don’t want an ad-filled proprietary experience & that you wish to be contacted in a manner where your privacy is a priority.
Google’s reviews have a lot of junk in them except the ones stating business closed/moved (OSM you can literally delete or move the POI, but less users). The integrated crowd-sourced images of establishments however is missing which makes it hard to understand POI in comparison—a picture is worth a thousand words.
I would just love it if I had the bus routes for my city readily available in open street maps, like how goog|e maps does it. I think goog|e maps might be my answer to the question if I can't find anything worse.
Not an alternative, but to make Discord on suck less I recommend Bunny.
A really good launcher!
Also, weather app!
I do find Breezy Weather quite nice ;)
I've been on Breezy for years now. No regrets.
Thanks for the tip, I'll have to check that out!
Been using Breezy for awhile after seeing it recommended here on Lenny. I like it, but I do wish I could easily search for a location without having it added to my list of Saved locations.
KISS launcher on minimal mode with nice icons and a geometric weather widget for me. Been rocking it for years and its amazing
Every time I pivot away from Trebuchet, I always pivot back. It does what I want; app folders, hidden apps, multiple screens, widgets.
All the alternatives sacrifice something
Kvaesitso has won me over as a nice looking and very customizable open source launcher
Interesting, thanks!
Mlauncher is stellar, and its open source.
I'll have to check that out, thank you!
Searching around online, I found NeoLauncher looks pretty good: https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher
I haven't tried it though.
It's a bit unorthodox but I use Pie Launcher from F-Droid.
As for weather, I use RadarWeather (also from f-droid)
I think Lawnchair is currently the best FOSS launcher. For weather, check out Breezy Weather
I can't really think of anything now because Android FOSS apps ecosystem is really good. What I want to suggest is contributing to already existing projects sometimes. It's faster and just another thing you can do to help open-source ecosystems
Yes, I don't think I have another app but more features on some apps I use (Smartdock, Joplin, Librera, Rimusic) would be slightly life-changing.
Google lens.
I love point and translate. Faster more pin pointed reverse image search is cool too.
Right now im looking for an alternative to the Google Maps Timeline. I know there is OwnTracks but I dont think that everything has to be hosted on a server somewhere (especially when all its saving is a timestamp and a coordinate, its not like that takes up alot of space)
Basically just your own location tracker and then the option to see your own history displayed in a map e.g. where you have been on the 02.july.2019 at 11:50.
I know there is OwnTracks but I dont think that everything has to be hosted on a server somewhere
Google Maps Timeline is also hosted on a server somewhere.
OsmAnd has a track recording feature.
Yeah obviously Google hosts this as a Services because it want your location data. But if I'm the only one who sees that data, I think it'd fine if it stays on my phone.
And I am especially not looking for a tracker like you showed (usually because I dont care "exactly exactly" how I went to places but rather at which time I have been at which place)
Are you thinking of a mobile app or something else, like fully separate hardware you'd carry around? Sounds interesting
No I am just thinking of an App. The Apps which exist (as far as I have found them, if there are better apps I would be glad for recommendations) are either:
I would also be interested in this!
A modern replacement for OpenScan. It's workable, but some features don't work on Modern Android, and a good Scanner app is probably something most people could use. Could look at Adobe Scan and Office Lens for feature inspiration.
Neat, thanks.
Yeah office lens is pretty much unbeatable. Open source would be amazing, but I at one point had about 6 document scanners on my phone and none of them held a candle to lens...
Microsoft is shit, but they have 2 apps that are not exploitative and are very great to use
Authenticator and Lens. They don't ask for any permissions that they don't need. They don't even require Microsoft account log in to work. They also have no ads, subscription, or premium prompts. Lens just requests files and camera. No location, no tracking, no cloud needed. It can simply be all local document scanning with great filtering,
Authenticator can be used with only camera permissions and it also it able to to push auth with key pairs, a step above general TOTP (though I still use everything with Aegis outside of work).
Not enshittified. Yet...
Poweramp
The way it handles its own audio engine is pretty much the best available.
Also large libraries...
Obsidian.
Is the obsidian Android App not open source? I thought all their stuff was. Kinda embarrassed I never checked.
Nah they use "an open standard" being just markdown files or something, but the apps are still proprietary as far as I'm aware
I really hate how I sometimes, though rarely, see Obsidian talked about as if it were open source just because it uses an open standard
Like Photoshop isn't open source because it can use PNG kinda thing
There's logseq, but it's not as polished.
Logseq is such a hassle. They didn't bother to write a proper abstraction for data blocks, they require you to write and read code like notes, and they don't plan on making any proper data visualization other than the fancy and useless graph.
There is already an opensource alternative to Obsidian, its name is #Logseq, you have mobile and desktop app
Logseq uses a bit of a different paradigm though. It is cool, but I wouldn't say it's a drop in replacement.
Nice question, you've got a lot of answers, most being major projects outside the scope of an individual, still, interesting pain points.
May I suggest you edit your OP with a list of viable options for individual devs or small teams to try ?
There's lots of FOSS music players, but none of them have a volume slider / preamp. The Android volume slider is always either too loud or quiet so I have to make fine adjustments using the preamp in JetAudio. If someone could add that to an existing music player that'd be cool.
And one that could handle a decent sized library (10s of thousands). One of the few places I'm happy to pay for it, Poweramp will let you buy a licence without google services. If you've already bought it and are on GrapheneOS you can enable play services for (3?) days and it stays good after you disable play services. I seldom shill, but here we are...
You can do this in VLC, though it's not very practical. VLC's equalizer has a preamp slider, it's just not great if you want to change it all the time.
I'm sorry, I don't have any specific suggestions for you, but I am wondering: is there no open source app you yourself wish existed because you would need it?
Working on an open source app because some else (and not you) needs it, is not a good way of staying engaged and caring about the solution. Being the user and target of a project yourself is usually a much netter way of caring and proposing something tailored to at least one individual, maybe more.
Of course, if you are looking for a programming exercise, go for it, but then you don't need ideas, you can reimplement something which already exists, perhaps which you like, but in your own way. But if you want to have an impact in the open source, it starts by needing something which you don't really find anywhere and taking matter in your own hands to fix it :) this is not meant to disincentivize you, quite the opposite! I hope you stay attentive to your digital ecosystem to see which holes can be plugged :)
I maintain a private list of ideas I just think of as I go about my day, of things I would like to write/create for myself and while I won't be going through with all of them, I hope to be able to pick up one or several of them whenever I have time. I can through some ideas here, not as a hint that you should do it (I'll probably do them myself regardless), but just to inspire you, maybe:
I have a few more, but this should give you some hints, I hope! Good luck!
Support for all the hardware so we can quit using garbage Google-provided Android on every single phone instead of just the half-dozen or so phones some of these Free Android builds support. Amazing that I can install Linux on every single freaking configuration of PC that's ever existed with a very tiny amount of systems not having support for all of its hardware even if said hardware has never been freed or even officially documented, but not with phones.
The damn things will still be a privacy nightmare because your cell signal tracks you everywhere you go, but at least we'd have a Free OS for everyone's phone.
A video editor...
Is Kdenlive no good? Always heard good things, but I don't use those kinds of software.
Kdenlive is a desktop app, not an android one, that the OP is asking for. Regardless, kdenlive crashes easily, has no hardware acceleration, and it doesn't have good color grading tools (particularly in regards to film emulation, which is what most people want to do artistic videos -- I used to shoot music videos). For basic videos, it's ok.
I think an open-source general device benchmark would be cool. Including CPU / GPU / Battery life metrics. As far as I know, everything that does this is proprietary.
Allowing manufacturers to know how a benchmark is performed also allows them to more easily artificially cheat when they know the benchmark is running.
That's a good point, but I don't figure this theoretical application would be big enough for any manufacturer to care about. I just wanted something for the people :-)
NZB360
A nutrition tracker where you can enter what foods you eat into a small database. And then when you eat meals you can check those foods off in order to calculate all of the nutrition facts consumption per day. And it could be expanded even further by adding graphs and reports such as Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly.
Could track Calories, Vitamins, Minerals, and other specific nutrition stats. Most nutrition apps I've seen only track Calories... Or don't have accurate nutrition applied to specific foods as it is generic. Letting the user add the food as a item in a small database would give the user more control of how the stats and reports are calculated.
Could be helpful for some to see their intake and then figure out ways to change it to become healthier.
Isn't this literally what Waistline is for Android? You create your own local food database (which you can automatically fetch info from Open Food Facts or USDA if desired, but not required) which lets you put in as many nutriments to track as you wish, all with graphs and information with different timelines.
No clue if there's anything like this for desktop.
Sooo, an open source Cronometer.
.. which is a really good app btw. Been using it for 10 years.
Also, export the graphs/reports to PDF, or something easy to pass to a doctor.
Maybe a dev can take inspiration from the Yuka app. To their credit, they have put together a great database for scanning foods and comparing ingredients, as well as offering understand of the possible risks of those ingredients.
I can't find an equivalent replacement for Musicolet. There are plenty of open source music players out there for Android that just don't have the little features that Musicolet does. Such as multiple queues, lyric editing, metadata editing, format conversions, stop after the track finishes, easily reorder songs and clear queues, etc.
+1
+1
Meme Generator
The only true answer
Something like memetastic? https://github.com/gsantner/memetastic
Yea I know about it but you can't make any of the modern memes with it. It only supports top and bottom text memes, which have been outdated for a couple of years now.
I posted a similar question a few months ago if you want some more ideas :) (also looking to develop/design an open source app -- hmu if you want to collab on one!)
Any image/video editor in Android. I've been trying Image Toolbox, but sometimes it doesn't work or crashes :(
A closer analogy would be XMPP since that's what whatsapp is based on.
The best open source client for it is Conversations for Android ($0 on F-Droid, $3 on google play except during christmas when it's $0)
This and so many others that are irreplaceable because of the Network effect. Google Maps, Uber and so on...
However if you are looking for a self contained app to bring into the Foss ecosystem then I would recommend making a game that you like?
My first game that I bought on Google Play was Osmos making a version of this that is open source would make me happy....
Edit: someones already mentioned these below... nevermind!
If youre in the EU then EU parliament forced whatsapp to start developing cross-app communications with Signal, telegram etc. (Source). This was in 2022 and was due to be released in March 2024. Im not sure where it got to though since i dont use whatsapp, though i might start asking some friends to see if its rolled out.
Alternatively there are "matrix bridges". Namely via Matrix which can link messaging apps through matrix accounts and send messages between
Make an Android app for Redlib please :)
KineStop - After Apple announcef Motion Cues, I went looking on Android because I cannot use my devices in a moving vehicle. KineStop is all I found. I went ahead and bought it because it helps (doesn't completely get rid of motion sickness). I would gladly switch to an open source alternative if one were available.
The Transit app, used for bus/train route info and buying tickets. I imagine the ticket buying part would be difficult to OS, but I just want the live transit routing info. A few apps exist for other cities, but not mine. Worst part is Transit relies on Google Maps.
I believe google maps pulls its data from municipalities setting up and streaming realtime data using this: https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs-realtime
For my city, I was able to pull this GTFS data into my home automation system to show next arrival times for a couple of convenient stops near my home.
I don't use it much since I've already got it active on the apps I wanted it for, but on Samsung's Galaxy Store there is an app I've never found an alternative to anywhere from my limited searching: Sound Assistant.
On desktop/laptop, turning off individual app/program sounds is super easy, but this is literally the only app I've ever seen that allows you to turn off the sound for individual apps on android. Don't know if other versions of android from other brands or android 14 has that feature natively, but it's a feature I wish was native to all versions of android regardless of which large brand has made their own alterations to android.
A minor problem, though, as I assume most people probably don't give a rats ass about this.
There are a few Magisk modules for this. This isn't something that is possible without root or owning a Samsung phone
"Pixels" mood tracker. I love it but I also love self-hosting all my services.
Komoot and strava... General route planning and teavkinv software..
There is an IOS app for hot air balloon pilots called "Hot Air". There is a similar app for Android that... Leaves much to be desired.
There's several functions that are needed. First, we need a map. We need to be able to enter waypoints and/or polygons charting landing zones, prohibited zones, targets, etc. we need an easy way to select targets, and our bearing and distance to those targets.
For planning purposes, we need a bearing line that we can place and move on that map. We need to be able to easily drag and drop each end of the line, and get the bearing and distance between the endpoints.
Next, we need track recording. It should record a ground track during flight, preferably with altitude information, and notes about the flight.
Next, a wind map. The wind speed and direction varies considerably by altitude. It needs to record direction and speed as we climb and descend, telling us what altitude has winds favorable for our current target.
Bonus points if we can prepopulate that wind map with data from a "pibal" (pilot balloon; a simple latex party balloon released and tracked with compass and stopwatch before a flight)
Next, coordination with other pilots and ground crews. 3D location sharing between participants; wind map data shared between pilots.
I support this just because it's something so niche that I believe you balloon people deserve it. I feel like we all with our own requests for media players and readers and launchers and messengers have at least a couple usable options and tons of options that may require getting used to or some compromise, but are there. But an app for balloon pilots? There's something that probably is in dire need of something else.
A delivery tracking app would be great, ideally with Widgets and Material You. On iOS I used to use Deliveries or ParcelTrack, but after switching to Android and primarily using open source software, I couldn't find a good alternative.
I was going to write "a decent comic reader", but I've recently discovered Kotatsu and it has literally changed my life.
Is it better than Mihon?
Fitbod, a fitness app that monitored my progress and health data and auto generated appropriate workouts taking muscle group fatigue into consideration
I want to crop screenshots easily :(
Check "Image Toolbox" on fdroid
Thx but it is not as fast as "markup" or huawei's screenshot tool. You need multiple steps in order to crop a simple image.
What android OS do you use? On stock Android 14 (GrapheneOS, but it's not a GOS feature) this functionality is built into the stock screenshot tool.
pwr+voldown -> tap screenshot that appears in the overlay after you take it -> tap the crop tool . I suppose step three could be removed but what if you want to do something that isn't cropping? There are lots of other features so at some point you have to tell the tool what you want to do.
Mixplorer ?
Would like to get an effective metadata eraser, this one is pretty good https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jarsilio.android.scrambledeggsif/ but cannot saved to device, that's really awful... If you could get something as strong as this and saved it to device that would be pretty nice
Have you tried ImagePipe?
I can't wake up or a similar app.
I would've wanted an alarm clock app with 'tasks' you need to do before turning it off.
So what i use works is a bit different kind of task but it gets you out of bed...
I use this just for fun and its great
I know about one app that requires you to solve math questions. I want all the other tasks.
Lol I'd just force stop the app. Outsmarted.
If you're interested in something that doesn't even exist, and should be more-or-less straightforward:
Music/podcast app that will accept VST plugins (there are many FOSS ones, as well as non-FOSS ones) so that we can compress/limit the sound range on podcasts while in the car. Or even a built-in compressor/limiter that's based on FOSS compressors.
I was listening to a hysterical podcast episode between three people, but one of mics was way louder than the other two. I had to take it into Pro Tools and fix it myself before listening to it.
There are apps that allow EQ, but none that do actual compression, from what I can tell.
The ability to automatically detect commercials (via sound level / machine learning) and skip them would be amazing as well. There's an app for iOS that does this, but nothing for Android.
Something that comes up a lot but probably can't be made open source is a wallet app. But if we ignore the payments part, Google wallet has some really nice features when dealing with plane tickets which I'd love to see in a standalone open source app.
I use fWallet for my plane tickets
Will check that, thanks
I don't have any idea of how conplicated it would be, but a phone app would be a nice option. The stock dialer that comes with FOSS ROMs is OK functionally, but visually looks like it was from 2010. Plus it's not available through F-droid or other open source app store. Koler is the only serious dialer alternative I've seen, and while it looks nice it has always been super buggy.
I'm thinking of this too. I heard there's only one good alternative dialer app (don't remember if it was Koler or not). We have a lot of FOSS SMS apps but no dialer ones for some reason
I've been using Emerald Dialer for a good six months now and I love it.
I've tried it, but I am a little picky about UI personally. It functioned well while I used it, but had a very dated style. Totally a cosmetic issue though.
Have you tried the fossify dialer?
Their whole set of apps is nice.
A lightweight office suit
Uber? What do you use for rides?
Sailforms Android app!
https://groups.google.com/g/sailforms-users
Use like 12 years for keeping track of lots of personal stuff. It's a generic database / table / forms app that's very powerfull. Buttons, queries, reports, calculated fields etc.
But: the app developer stopped despite a rather enthusiastic community. Now it isn't even on the Play Store anymore and I guess everybody must have an exit strategy.
Have you heard about grist?
Not until now, thnx, will investigate!
Xplore file browser
It's trivial to replace the independent pieces of xplore, but it has so many features in one app that I just can't let it go. It's got dual pane file browsing, disk usage chart, smb, ftp, and many other cloud storage connections. It also handles many types of compression.
It's become my main offline music player as well, because it has the simple ability to shuffle a folder of music, which is all I really need.
It can also view installed apps, export them to apk, and view and modify appdata (as non root!).
Same but with FX File Explorer
It just has so many useful features
SMS Backup & Restore? Unless there is an alternative that I'm missing? Play store link
Why is there not an app that tells you which grocery stores have the best prices? I should be able to give it a list and it'll tell me where to buy each item.
An equivalent to iOS Shortcuts for Android and Linux.
Don’t any linux DE have something like a shortcuts app?
Maybe, but the thing that makes iOS Shortcuts so great is that it basically offers an extensive GUI to interact with all of the system's APIs.
FLOSS Shazam? I really love discovering music when I travel, but I see no open source version of it.
Just an open source frontend for Shazam, but Audire is pretty nice for this
Visual voicemail