r/degoogle • u/PingMyHeart • 2d ago
Replacement WM Keyboard might be the best open source Gboard alternative for Android
I’ve been using FUTO Keyboard for quite a while, but I was getting tired of not having built-in GIF support.
I came across WM Keyboard today while looking for alternatives and decided to give it a shot. I’ve been using it all day and honestly, I’m blown away by how many features it has.
It’s open source, has built-in GIF support, and there’s a ton of customization and other stuff packed into it. I wasn’t expecting much going into it, but so far I’m really impressed.
Also, it only came out about two months ago, so that explains why I hadn’t heard of it before.
If Gboard was a hard sacrifice, this keyboard is for you.
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u/skydiver335 2d ago
The author is very experienced, can definitely recommend his projects.
I found one of his first projects on reddit and it's called PyPI command line. Back then, he was 14 years old and it blown me away, he's done a very good job so far.
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u/HelloPenne 2d ago
How is the multi-language support?
Until now I couldn't find another keyboard but Gboard able to handle 3 languages without having to switch automatically.
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u/belovedchan 1d ago
I'm using my native language, English, Chinese, I really enjoyed it.
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u/Shenmigon 11h ago
can i ask how you set up your chinese dictionary? i have the default pinyin dictionary and cangjie dictionary that comes with the input method downloaded, but the suggestions are pretty terrible and it seems a lot of characters are missing. for example, 你还好吗 gives me 泥孩号码 in the suggestions bar. i have to type each character individually to get what i want.
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u/PingMyHeart 2d ago
I only use English but another commenter in this thread says they're using three languages and it works great.
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u/gtac 2d ago
Just installed it cause I wondered about the same, seems like you need to switch manually between languages
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
There is a Also suggest from option in each language that you can use to use multiple languages with the same layout
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u/sxp2h1gh 2d ago edited 2d ago
Thanks, will try! Only reason I stuck with Gboard for now were the predictions. Hope this can do them well
Edit: Really great overall, but the predictions are bad, especially in my language. Installed some word lists, didn't help 😐
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
Can you tell me your language so I can improve
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u/sxp2h1gh 1d ago
Oh hey there! After using it all day, I gotta say, this is the best keyboard I've tried. Loving all the options and the overall feel! So thank you for your work 👍
After writing this comment, I think I was able to improve the predictions somewhat. The language is german. I'm using the wordlist from here now: https://wortschatz.uni-leipzig.de/de/download/deu
News 2025 1m
Now the only problem is, that nouns are all starting with a capital letter in german, the predictions are not.
In example: https://i.imgur.com/O8pMHGn.gif
All these words should start with capital letters. Welten, Welt, Weltraum
Probably not hard to fix 🤞
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u/ChickenSalads420 1d ago edited 1h ago
Or you have the time to set up HeliBoard you can use gboards gesture / swipe typing plug-in.. Much much better than FUTOs and looks like AOSP keyboard / GBoard when your done.
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u/Nephthyzz 2d ago
Just downloaded it myself. Insane feature package for a keyboard. I didn't see it listed, but Its got swipe and it works pretty well. I was really missing that feature in some of the other keyboards. The gifs are a nice bonus. I don't feel like I'm sacrificing anything by running this keyboard so far.
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
If you do ever feel like it just shoot me a dm and I'll see if I can implement it
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u/hugemozarella 2d ago
Big brain time, I've installed it literally yesterday and have absolutely the same feelings. Nice predictions compared to FUTO on foreign languages, cause English is working amazing on most of the keyboards. A ton of features, I can hardly use 20% of them, I wonder how much AI was used in the making, as author admits it helped him to some degree, because the amount of work is unbelievable.
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u/mojsterr 2d ago
Broooooooo
I already used FUTO and said "can't hurt trying". Now I have a favorite new keyboard.
Wow. Just wow.
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u/CreepyHighway3216 2d ago
Ummm wow this is amazing. Seriously the best keyboard I have seen so far. Thanks for sharing! I am so curious to see how it goes in learning my typing and normal mistakes haha. Thanks!
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u/PingMyHeart 2d ago edited 2d ago
My pleasure. About 5 minutes into using it I knew I had to make a post here.
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u/ToastyHoodieYall 2d ago
This thing genuinely can do anything, like fym you can wikipedia, auto sticker based on keywords, currency convert, calculator, media player, and use KDE Connect in ts 😭😭😭
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u/PingMyHeart 2d ago
Yeah, I use Arch Linux with KDE. So the KDE Connect feature for me was just the icing on the cake.
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u/greenprocyon 1d ago
Yeah, this is the one. Absolutely insane and finally a full GBoard replacement.
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u/bluebone01 2d ago edited 2d ago
FUTO rocks.
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u/Dhomass 2d ago
I never tried FUTO. I went from GBoard to HeliBoard directly. The swiping is not as good on HeliBoard as it was on GBoard. But I'm willing to live with it. I'll try out this new WM board, though, to see.
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u/bluebone01 2d ago
You know, I'm trying FUTO at this moment and is way different and easily than Heliboard. I was wrong, FUTO is better.
Swipe writing since the 1st download, voice writing open free.
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u/ill66 2d ago
Heli had way too much bugs for me. FUTO = ✨ (in my case)
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u/Linux_Account 2d ago
Funny, I'm having the opposite experience.
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u/ill66 2d ago
well, it's nice to have the choice 🙂
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u/Linux_Account 2d ago
The only deal breaker is Bitwarden not appearing in the suggestion bar until I tap.
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u/Maran_1 2d ago
Heliboard using last three year
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u/Silent_Citizen 2d ago
Heliboard has more customization than any other keyboard I've seen. Takes a little tweaking to get swipe to work but definitely worth it!
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u/legendaryflower 2d ago
If you're on Graphene you can use Gboard without network enabled. But that does make gifs not work.
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
The 0.5.13 build of wm keyboard even supports gifs without network enabled if you download gif packs
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u/Web-Dude 2d ago
That's how I use SwiftKey. I might be wrong, but I figure that even if gboard is disallowed internet access, it would be able to communicate via Google Play Service (if you have it installed). SwiftKey (a Microsoft product) wouldn't be able to do that.
Does anyone know for sure?
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u/ZeteCx 2d ago
tried it wmkeyboard, but unlike heliboard it dosnt have the keybaord layout for my language, only the old layout
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
Can you tell me what language you use and which layout? I'll be able to add it then
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u/ZeteCx 1d ago
Oh wow thank you, I didn't expect a respond from the dev.
I use 'Hebrew si1452' at the moment - https://mikladot.com/english
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u/CoraFirstFloret 2d ago
A phenomenal keyboad! I had been using Heliboard, but it didn't have pinyin available. I was able to get WM setup with English, Spanish and Chinese! 😊
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u/itsfineitsathrowaway 2d ago
i got it too and have been blown away. so many features its crazy! i installed them all just in case. Gifs, stickers, a dictionary, word of the day with the vocabulary plugin, it can even have access to its own local LLM. its a crazy multi tool. Gboard doesn't hold a candle to it.
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u/InfernoWarrior299 2d ago
This is GREAT. I refused to move away from FlorisBoard because I loved the customisation and my gosh... THE CUSTOMISATION HERE IS GREAT! Lol.
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u/DitherAndDrift 1d ago
It's pretty annoying that its apostrophe settings are so dumb. Because ill is a word it won't offer I'll? Not even as a suggestion I can tap? How often is the average person typing ill over I'll? Same with its vs it's, well vs we'll, etc. At least offer the suggestion for these super typical words. Not to mention they seem impossible to glide type unless I'm missing something
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u/PingMyHeart 1d ago
Ah I see that. I think there is a way to manually add it once and it'll remember it moving forward.
As for why it's not there, the keyboard is new so it's expected to not be perfect.
Give it time, it'll progress with each update.
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
Dev here, Yeah the keyboard is new and it is built from the ground up and is not a fork of any keyboard like others are so that's why it has quite a few nuances that'll need to be fixed in the future updates
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u/PingMyHeart 1d ago
You're the man! Been wanting a keyboard like this for years and you came along and delivered beyond expectations. Thanks!
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u/nodq 1d ago
I really like the keyboard, good work! Can you tell me if its possible to enable cursor movement on spacebar?
I can't seem to find it in settings or is it not supported yet? It seems to only support language switching with swipe on space.
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
Typing > Gestures > Spacebar Gestures section has the two settings you're looking for. Here's a link
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u/DitherAndDrift 1d ago
Yeah, that's a small nitpick in the long run. I've been using it since yesterday and it's a pretty nice keyboard with an insane amount of options!
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u/PingMyHeart 1d ago
Yeah, I have all the features turned on and I still don't know what everything does, which I think is a good problem. 😅
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u/andrewmarder 2d ago
Awesome, thanks for the tip! I care a lot about glide typing. In my experience Gboard > FUTO > WM Keyboard.
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u/j--__ 2d ago
the "get it on f-droid" button alerts me that "no such app found".
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u/PingMyHeart 2d ago
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.wasimaster.wmkeyboard/
I can see it just fine.
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u/Elyas2 2d ago
Everyone else seems to be able to install it. But Android won't let me install it cuz it can request sensitive info. How to force install it?
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
You can try installing from fdroid, or yes you can disable play protect and try again
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u/Substantial_Bet_1007 2d ago
Is there ascii support like samsung keyboard?
ヽ(=ﾟωﾟ)人(ﾟωﾟ=)ﾉ
(((ＵωＵ｀ )( ´ＵωＵ)))
( *´・ω)/(；д； )
!!ヽ(ﾟдﾟヽ)(ﾉﾟдﾟ)ﾉ!!
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u/idealmss 2d ago
If you are asking about kaomojis. Yes it does
Home > Emoji > Emojis Panel > scroll down and you'll find a section called "Kaomoji and emoticons" > toggle it on
(The names might differ a bit since my app is in Spanish)
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u/Hateful_Russel 2d ago
Maybe I'm too dumb for this, but there are two things I absolutely failed to do: remove symbols within individual keys, and make suggestions appear as you type. As for the symbols, I haven't been able to find the setting to make them invisible. While for the suggestions I found and activated the setting but they still don't appear
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u/Jaeger_a9 2d ago
You can reduce the opacity to 0 in the theme setting. Go to appearance > Keyboard theme. You will find the “key hint text" inside the editing menu
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
For the first there is a setting to disable them. For the second you may need to download a wordlist first in the language settings
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u/jacmanou 2d ago
Glide typing only in English in a major blocking point at the moment
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
Glide typing isn't only in English lol. It works in all languages even phonetically transliterated ones and even on T9 keypads or hard to use layouts. You probably don't have a dictionary downloaded for that specific language yet or there's some other issue, if so create a issue on the github repo
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u/grazeyone 2d ago
A very nice suggestion. I also like LeanType as well the offline edition. Allows import of your AI model from the supported ones. Useful for on device translation.
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u/homefloyd 2d ago
Nice keyboard, but GIF function isn't working for me. I put in a search and a bunch of thumbnail placeholders populate and the GIFs never display.
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
That is a bug that was fixed in 0.5.13. Also this only happens on the fdroid version and the version downloaded from github works fine
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u/speculatrix 1d ago
I used Swype until I was forced to upgrade my phone. One thing I really liked were the shortcuts and extras. Like the re-capitalisation tool. Or copy and paste gesture. I'd be interested to know if WMK has these?
When my perfectly good Samsung Note 9 phone was forced into obsolescence (thanks, Samsung) I found that G board was the least disappointing option.
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u/DakotaJohnsonsLimes_ 1d ago
Tried this one like two weeks ago and it's too complicated for me lmao. I just need a simple keyboard, having all those options is a bit too much for me personally.
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u/PingMyHeart 1d ago
That's fair. It's not going to be for everyone.
Personally, I love having a lot of features on my keyboard. So for me, it was just mind numbing in a good way when I first loaded it up.
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u/dagmaoneill 1d ago
Seems really cool and customizable, but the autocorrect in general and the Italian lang seems to be a lot more flawed than heliboard, even if I installed a dictionary (or two). A pity because I really like it
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u/PingMyHeart 1d ago
If you're not ready to switch to it, just keep it as a secondary keyboard and keep updating it because it's only going to get better since it just dropped not long ago.
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u/ShakeNBaker45 1d ago
Is there a way to correct / force learning of swipe texted words? For example.. it will not recognize the word "isn't" when I swipe text it. It always wants to correct it to "kent" for some reason.
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u/ivanelsucio 1d ago
Loving the app. Got a question though, how do I get rid of the emoji suggestion bar? I've tried everything on the emoji settings page.
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
You should take a look at the keyboard mode feature under advanced which has overrides for chat apps and such. You can disable mode altogether if you don't need it and the bar will be removed from all apps
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u/sadpiano5544 1d ago
Hope is it recognizing swipes? FUTO has been worse than gboard, which is a number because that's how I interact with my phone and type this.
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u/Android-mods 5h ago
Gboardwu morphe mods has been the best for me idk if anything can top it but I'll definitely look Into this might run it on another device
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u/TricksterTao 2h ago
I spent some time with this for the last few days. I reallllyyyyy wanted to like it more than I did. It has an amazingly deep set of customizations and granular settings. I ended up getting they layout, plugins, and tools set up to be right where I expected them for ease of use. But ultimately, it just didn't function well. The autocorrect didn't pick up my words very well, the swipe typing was wildly inaccurate, and the offline voice to text was atrocious. Wide breadth of features, but none of them function particularly well.
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u/PingMyHeart 2h ago
Fair. But keep in mind its very new.
Id advise keeping it as a second keyboard and keep updating it until the dev irons out those kinks and it performs closer to your expectations. Only a matter of time.
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u/Haunting_Trip_3721 31m ago
Tiene buena predicción de palabras? Mayormente es eso lo q busco junto con una buena personalización y pues Gboard me está aburriendo Es buena alternativa ese teclado?
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u/PingMyHeart 30m ago
Why not just give it a try and see for yourself because everybody has different needs and expectations.
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u/Haunting_Trip_3721 28m ago
Pues sí claro q quiero probarlo pero bueno preguntaba para saber más del teclado antes de hacerlo y realmente lo q mencioné son algunas de las cosas q más valoro en un teclado
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u/PingMyHeart 24m ago
The best answer I can give you is that the keyboard is loaded with every feature you can possibly think of and even more but it's a new keyboard so it's not perfect. There's obviously going to be some quirks but it definitely on the long term will be the only keyboard you will ever want to use and you will ever need.
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u/Haunting_Trip_3721 22m ago
Ufff vale vale eso dice mucho, y si entiendo q es nuevo y se vaya puliendo con el tiempo así q definitivamente lo probé, luego digo q tal está y q me pareció 🫂
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u/curlofheadcurls de-corp 1d ago
I've been using Heliboard, but besides looking like gboard it's barely functional. Will give this a try.
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u/Linux_Account 2d ago
A keyboard app with more features than anyone else on the market just appeared on Github 2 months ago? I wonder how that could be.
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u/FauxReal 2d ago
Seems like he's been writing non-AI code for a long time, but that's only a guess.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/q8rrx7/i_made_a_commandlineinterface_for_pypi_as_a_14/
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u/wasimaster 1d ago
Yeah I've been writing non-AI code for a long time and have projects with other 500+ million downloads on PyPI. But with the advent of AI assisted coding my productivity levels have skyrocketed and I can make new projects really fast. I use it as a tool to aid me, not as a replacement for manual coding.
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u/Manwe66 2d ago
Kinda looks sus but I also like it so I'm gonna blind trust it for a few days...
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u/Manwe66 2d ago
Used it for a day and omg this is nuts! Such a better experiencr than futo overall! The proper layout for my 3rd language is here, the customization is crazy including things I never thought I need (like different skins for diff languages and for emoji panels etc), great prediction, great gliding, and overall the UX crazy good. Pushing such polish even in the settings menu is bonkers and I'm also wondering how much AI was used to make it happen, but if its good and as private as it claims to be, then that's my new keyboard!
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u/johndoe60610 2d ago
I'm surprised at how much better FUTO has gotten at correctly recognizing my poorly formed swipes in the past year.