This is a list of Android distributions, Android-based operating systems (OS) commonly referred to as Custom ROMs or Android ROMs, forked from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) without Google Play Services included officially in some or all markets, yet maintained independent coverage in notable Android-related sources.
The list may include distributions that come pre-installed on a device (stock ROM) or modifications of them. Only builds considered official are listed.
Name | Developer | Development status | Last updated | Open source? [lower-alpha 1] | Latest release | Android version | Year started | Supported devices | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AliOS | Alibaba Cloud | Discontinued | 2018 | Kernel only | 2.0 | 2011 | A forked but incompatible version of Android [1] | ||
AOKP | Team Kang | Discontinued | 2020 | Yes | Pie | 9 | 2011 | 115 [2] | Based on LineageOS |
Baidu Yi | Baidu, Inc. | Discontinued | 2015 | Kernel only | Unknown | Unknown | 2011 | Unknown | Discontinued in March 2015 |
BharOS | JandK, IIT Madras | Active | 2023 | No | Unknown | Unknown | 2023 | Unknown | A fork of the Android Open Source Project [3] |
CalyxOS | Calyx Institute | Active | 2024 | Yes | 5 [4] | 14 | 2019 [5] | Google Pixel 3 through 8 Pro, Fairphone 4, SHIFT6mq, Moto G32 through G52 [6] | Privacy focused. |
ColorOS | OPPO | Active | 2023 | Kernel only | 14 | 14 | 2013 | OPPO and OnePlus Android Smartphones and Tablets | |
CopperheadOS | Copperhead Security | Active | 2022 | Kernel only | 13.09.28 | 13 [7] | 2014 | 9 [8] | Security- and privacy-focused, no OS analytics by default, smartphones with preinstalled OS commercially available. |
crDroid | crDroid team | Active | 2024 | Yes | 10.0 | 14 | 2014 [9] | 485 [10] | Based on LineageOS. |
CyanogenMod | CyanogenMod Open-Source Community, Cyanogen Inc | Discontinued | 2016 | Yes | 14.1 Nightly | 7.1.1 | 2009 | 571 [11] | CyanogenMod's official successor is LineageOS |
DivestOS [12] | Tad (SkewedZeppelin) | Active | 2023 | Yes | 20 | 13 | 2014 | 178 [13] | Soft fork of LineageOS. Includes Monthly Updates, FOSS Focus, Deblobbing, Security and Privacy focus, and F-Droid |
/e/ | e Foundation | Active | 2024 | Partial | 1.21 [14] | 13 [14] | 2017 | 251 [15] | Privacy focused, smartphones with preinstalled OS commercially available. Forked from LineageOS. Formerly called "Eelo" and now named MurenaOS. |
emteria.OS | emteria GmbH | Active | 2022 | Kernel only [16] | 11.8 [17] | 13 | 2017 | ARM and x86 platforms, strong focus on the Raspberry Pi family (3B, 4, CM, etc) | Platform for building custom Android ROMs ("emteria.OS") targeted at professional enterprise applications. Supported by a set of remote management and OTA update capabilities ("DeviceHub"). |
EMUI | Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | Discontinued | 2024 | No | 14.2 | 12 | 2012 | Huawei and Honor devices | Also known as Magic UI in most of the high-end Honor devices and the current Honor devices after it split with Huawei. |
Fire OS | Amazon.com, Inc. | Active | 2021-09-25 | Partial [18] | 8.3.1.9 | 11 | 2011 | Amazon Kindle Fire, Fire TV, Fire Phone, Amazon Echo | Centered on content consumption, heavy ties to Amazon's store and content. |
GrapheneOS | GrapheneOS team | Active | 2024 | Yes | 14 | 14 | 2019 [19] | Supported Google Pixel devices [20] | Security and privacy focused. Lead developer worked on CopperheadOS until a dispute between the co-founders over licensing caused his departure. [19] |
HyperOS | Xiaomi Corporation | Active | 2023 | Kernel only | 1.0 | 14 | 2023 | Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO devices | Succeeding MIUI |
Indus OS | Team Indus OS | Active | ? | Kernel only | 3.0 | 7 | 2015 | 80 [21] | |
iodéOS | iodé technologies | Active | 2022 | Partial | 3.3 | 12 | 2020 | 20 [22] | Based on LineageOS. |
Kali NetHunter [23] [24] | Kali community member “BinkyBear” & Offensive Security | Active | 2024-06-05 [25] [26] | Yes | 2024.2 [24] [25] [26] | 5.1.1 - | Unknown | 48 [24] [27] [28] [29] | Open Source Android penetration testing platform. NetHunter supports Wireless 802.11 frame injection, one-click MANA Evil Access Point setups, HID keyboard, as well as BadUSB MITM attacks – built upon Kali Linux distribution and toolsets. [23] [24] [30] |
LeWa OS | Lewa Technology | Discontinued | ? | Kernel only | OS 7 beta | 5.1.1 | 2011 | ||
LineageOS | LineageOS community | Active | 2024 | Yes | 21 | 14 | 2016 | 175 [31] | Officially the successor of CyanogenMod. |
MagicOS | Honor | Active | 2024 | No | 8 | 14 | 2016 | Honor devices | Also known as Magic UI on pre 7.x version, independently developed by Honor for Honor devices after it split with Huawei. |
OmniROM | OmniROM community | Active | 2020 | Yes | 14.0 | 14 | 2013 | 19 [32] | |
One UI | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Active | 2023 | Kernel only | 6.0 | 14 | 2019 | Samsung Galaxy Smartphones and Tablets | Succeeding Samsung Experience UX and TouchWiz |
OxygenOS | OnePlus | Active | 2024 | Partial | 14 | 14 | 2015 | OnePlus Android Smartphones | Merged with HydrogenOS in 2018. [33] Using ColorOS codebase from 12.0 release. |
Paranoid Android | Paranoid Android Team | Active | 2024 | Yes | Uvite | 14 | 2012[ citation needed ] | 31 [34] | Based on CAF |
PixelExperience | PixelExperience Team | Discontinued | 2024 | Yes | 14 | 14 | 2017 | 100+ [35] | Discontinued in April 2024, Android 14 is a beta |
Realme UI | Realme | Active | 2023 | Kernel only | 5.0 | 14 | 2020 | Realme devices | Based on ColorOS |
Replicant | Denis Carikli, Paul Kocialkowski | Active | 2019 | Yes | 6.0 0003 | 6 | 2010 | 12 [36] | Based on LineageOS, removes or replaces proprietary components and anti-features |
Resurrection Remix OS | Resurrection Remix Team | Active | 2021 | Yes | 8.7.3 | 10 | 2012 | 74 [37] | |
Shift OS | SHIFT GmbH | Active | 2023 | Yes | 2018 | ||||
SlimRoms | SlimRoms Team | Active | 2018 | Yes | 7 | 7.1 | 2012 | ~50 | |
Smartisan OS | Smartisan | Active | 2020 | Partial | 8.0 | 10 | 2012 | 15 | |
Volla OS [38] | Volla Systeme GmbH | Active | 2023 | Partial | 12.0 | 12 | 2009 | 5 |
A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and often a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one of the Linux distributions, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices and personal computers to powerful supercomputers.
This is a list of operating systems specifically focused on security. Similar concepts include security-evaluated operating systems that have achieved certification from an auditing organization, and trusted operating systems that provide sufficient support for multilevel security and evidence of correctness to meet a particular set of requirements.
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, UNIX-like kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and soon after was adopted as the kernel for the GNU operating system (OS) which was created to be a free replacement for Unix.
Rooting is the process by which users of Android devices can attain privileged control over various subsystems of the device, usually smartphones and tablets. Because Android is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel, rooting an Android device gives similar access to administrative (superuser) permissions as on Linux or any other Unix-like operating system such as FreeBSD or macOS.
Replicant is a free operating system (OS) based on the Android mobile platform that intends to replace all proprietary Android components with free-software counterparts. It is available for several smartphones and tablet computers. It is written in the same programming languages as Android. The modifications are mostly in the C language; the changes are mostly to the lower-level parts of the OS, such as the Linux kernel and drivers that use it.
Kali Linux is a Linux distribution designed for digital forensics and penetration testing. It is maintained and funded by Offensive Security. The software is based on the Debian Testing branch: most packages Kali uses are imported from the Debian repositories.
F-Droid is an open-source app store and software repository for Android, serving a similar function to the Google Play store. The main repository, hosted by the project, contains only free and open source apps. Applications can be browsed, downloaded and installed from the F-Droid website or client app without the need to register for an account. "Anti-features" such as advertising, user tracking, or dependence on non-free software are flagged in app descriptions.
Besides the Linux distributions designed for general-purpose use on desktops and servers, distributions may be specialized for different purposes including computer architecture support, embedded systems, stability, security, localization to a specific region or language, targeting of specific user groups, support for real-time applications, or commitment to a given desktop environment. Furthermore, some distributions deliberately include only free software. As of 2015, over four hundred Linux distributions are actively developed, with about a dozen distributions being most popular for general-purpose use.
Linux for mobile devices, sometimes referred to as mobile Linux, is the usage of Linux-based operating systems on portable devices, whose primary or only Human interface device (HID) is a touchscreen. It mainly comprises smartphones and tablet computers, but also some mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) portable media players that come with a touchscreen separately.
Kali NetHunter is a free and open-source mobile penetration testing platform for Android devices, based on Kali Linux. Kali NetHunter is available for non-rooted devices, for rooted devices that have a standard recovery, and for rooted devices with custom recovery for which a NetHunter specific kernel is available (NetHunter). Official images are published by Offensive Security on their download page and are updated every quarter. NetHunter images with custom kernels are published for the most popular supported devices, such as Google Nexus, Samsung Galaxy and OnePlus. Many more models are supported, and images not published by Offensive Security can be generated using NetHunter build scripts. Kali NetHunter is maintained by a community of volunteers, and is funded by Offensive Security.
CopperheadOS is a mobile operating system for smartphones, based on the Android mobile platform. It adds privacy and security features to the official releases of the Android Open Source Project by Google. CopperheadOS is developed by Copperhead, a Canadian information security company. It is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, although its source code is not available for public download.
LineageOS is an Android-based operating system for smartphones, tablet computers, and set-top boxes, with mostly free and open-source software. It is the successor to CyanogenMod, from which it was forked in December 2016, when Cyanogen Inc. announced it was discontinuing development and shut down the infrastructure behind the project. Since Cyanogen Inc. retained the rights to the Cyanogen name, the project rebranded its fork as LineageOS.
Resurrection Remix OS, abbreviated as RR, is a free and open-source operating system for smartphones and tablet computers, based on the Android mobile platform. UX designer and head developer Altan KRK & Varun Date started the project in 2012.
/e/ is a fork of LineageOS, an Android-based mobile operating system, and associated online services. /e/ is presented as privacy software that does not contain proprietary Google apps or services, and challenges the public to "find any parts of the system or default applications that are still leaking data to Google."
GrapheneOS is an Android-based, open source, privacy and security-focused mobile operating system for selected Google Pixel devices, including smartphones, tablets and foldables that is recommended by Edward Snowden.
MicroG is a free and open-source implementation of proprietary Google libraries that serves as a replacement for Google Play Services on the Android operating system. It is maintained by German developer Marvin Wißfeld. In a presentation, Wißfeld described microG as "the framework to create a fully-compatible Android distribution without any proprietary Google components".
crDroid is a customized fork of Android based on LineageOS. It has been pioneering in offering unofficial releases of Android 10, 11, 12.1, 13, and 14 Custom ROMs.
CalyxOS is an operating system for smartphones based on Android with mostly free and open-source software. It is produced by the Calyx Institute as part of its mission to "defend online privacy, security and accessibility."
Plasma Mobile is a Plasma variant for smartphones. It is currently available for the Pinephone, and supported devices for postmarketOS such as the OnePlus 6.
DivestOS is an operating system based on the Android mobile platform. It is a soft fork of LineageOS that aims to increase security and privacy with support for end-of-life devices. As much as possible, it removes unnecessary proprietary Android components and includes only free-software.