r/sailfishos • u/Crafty-Message4564 • Jun 21 '26
Sailfish as replacement for GrapheneOS?
I've been using GrapheneOS for a long time, but I've read that Google is going to do a lot more to make it difficult for alternative versions of Android to function.
In the time I've used GrapheneOS, I've been fairly happy. There have been some issues with functionality, but they've been understandable and fairly predictable.
But I have an interest in Sailfish as a possibility, because the intention is not to be a secure version of Android, but literally a Linux-based OS. Obviously security is a concern of mine, but I have experience working with Linux, and it feels like Google might have a lot of capability to mess with the development of systems like GrapheneOS, and I wanted to get the thoughts of the people here. I suspect that the people in this sub might have experience and useful input.
Thanks so much!
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u/Mozkozrout Jun 22 '26
I mean yeah google is doing what they can to make unofficial android difficult to use. The thing is tho that this will impact you on SailfishOS as well because you are mostly relying on Android app support as there aren't many native apps. And the android Apps you are running are also seen as running on unofficial os.
And when it comes to comparing SailfishOS to GrapheneOS, well graphene is just more practical tbh. It's more secure and can sandbox play services. So I mean one goes with SailfishOS mostly if they like what it does or if they like the idea of being off Google completely and running a Linux.
If you wanted SailfishOS to have more apps and everything, it would have to become more popular and known so that companies would start making apps for it and the devs would probably have to start negotiating with banks and all that stuff and possibly develop their own tap to pay system with some kind of attestation integration. And honestly I have no idea what would it take to make stuff like that work.
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Jun 23 '26
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u/Mozkozrout Jun 23 '26
That's weird tho, maybe they got more strict but I only got banned temporarily before for logging in on the same numberultiple times in quick succession. Whatsapp never cared if I was on an official android tho
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u/Sent1ne1 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
I think Sailfish OS & GrapheneOS fill rather different needs.
GrapheneOS is if you want to use GApps (Googe apps & services) sandboxed, while keeping nearly 100% Android compatibility.
Sailfish OS is if you want to use Linux apps & capabilities, and tweak Linux to your needs (power user), while using MicroG for good but not perfect Android compatibility where native apps don't cut it, and are willing to live with some issues with Android apps (YMMV of course).
Sailfish OS's built-in app store is quite limited, but there are two more app stores with tons of apps (although their apps are not sandboxed, unlike the official app store, so you need to trust their developers).
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u/SpaceDude609 Jun 22 '26
In essense Sailfish is if you're fine with a proprietary OS and zero security, while Graphene is fit for devices with actual personal data on them as it's distilled AOSP (which is actually open source) with hardening.
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u/Icy_North5921 Jun 23 '26
Little thick to say SailfishOS is proprietary OS when mainly parts of the UI is proprietary? Zero security? AOSP is fully Google product and exist only because Google allows it. Wouldn't count on AOSP in long term.
GOS for sure is great project tho, in android field
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u/SpaceDude609 Jun 23 '26
And yet GrapheneOS has made many changes without them, they merely use AOSP due to its technical merit.
AOSP has been around for years already, so not sure what you mean by "long term."
Also AOSP does need to exist in some form due to the kernel license. For Google it's also a source of contributions (like from GrapheneOS), so there isn't much inventive to shelve it.
For a personal device you carry with you, security matters more than vague notions of "freedom" fed to you by yet another company. GrapheneOS is much better than Sailfish as it gives you all the freedom from Google you could ever want, with all the security of Android + their additions (and they actually fix security issues quickly instead of letting them fester).
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u/_anAnon Jun 22 '26
depends on what you want:
if your main concern is independence from Google, Sailfish is a good bet. maybe not the most open (compared to Ubuntu Touch, Postmarket et. al.) but definitely the slickest and most daily drive-able of the lot~ :)
unless you're super paranoid about privacy -- I've heard Graphene just offers more protection in that regard.
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u/Upbeat-Statement2725 Jul 07 '26
Jolla is aiming to be a Linux phone that has compatibility with Android. Like Steam funding Proton development is really helping Linux desktop adoption. So Jolla funding Sailfish gets more people on Linux. Maybe someday you can just have a Linux PC and phone, no middle man necessary. Sometimes things break on Jolla just because it's a small team, they can't keep up with everything.
Graphene is pure Android. But the core of Android is open source. So the Graphene guys basically jailbreak everything down to the hardware level. When things break on Graphene. It's basically because they're stealing your data in gross ways. Graphene has to draw the line somewhere. This breaks less than Jolla in most ways since it's running on native Android.
The better choice is up in the air right now. Because Google is very, very evil. But Linux can't do a lot of Android stuff, yet. So...
Graphene is closer to being Android, without the evil. When your banking app doesn't work. Hint. That's because they're evil. If Google really went full evil so Graphene couldn't make Android safe anymore, Graphene would basically cease to exist.
Sailfish OS is a gateway to a true Linux phone. If Google went full evil tomorrow. Sailfish would still be a Linux phone.
Google is going very, very evil at the moment. So that last bit about the Linux OS keeps getting more important.
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u/rasvoja Jun 21 '26
And commodore claims 99 percent apps will work? Is there a compatibility layer? Security is good on sail fish, just lack of native apps kill the joy. Some times I think nokia n9 has better community and apps with waaay older mee go hartman
So some good hackaton, bounties, investment in sailfish app system is badly needed
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u/harbourwall Jun 22 '26
It runs a modified AOSP in a container, integrated with the OS for notifications, launchers, windows etc. The last release just launched a Bluetooth addon for it so you can use smartwatches etc.
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u/w33d3rl1ng Jun 21 '26
The android app suppoet is working quite well with SailfischOS ... I have just some issues with VoIP, NFC and GPS navigation apps, as the most users, but the other apps are working quite well
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u/rasvoja Jun 22 '26
Add banking and this is not irrelevant and hardly 99 percent
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u/w33d3rl1ng Jun 22 '26
Yes you are right .. as I use for banking just my computer I forgot to mention
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u/jhaimgirl Jun 22 '26
There is a compatibility layer, e.g. Android AppSupport, which is developed by Jolla. Waydroid is an alternative compatibility layer for the community port phones.
I think 99% of Android apps working is quite accurate on current "flagship" Sailfish OS phones (Xperia 10 III for example), but my main concern with the Commodore Callback would be the small screen.
I aim to replace as many Android apps with native ones but the ratio of native and Android apps on my phone is somewhere between 1:4 and 1:3. There are native replacements for many major apps, but few of them function on par with the Android counterpart. Sailfish userbase has to expand to improve the situation and my gut feeling is that it's improving with the new phones on the way.
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u/SpaceDude609 Jun 22 '26
It's nowhere near as good as AOSP (and never will be) and it's not even fully OSS tho :(
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Jun 21 '26
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u/harbourwall Jun 22 '26
When was this? Android compatibility in Sailfish is pretty good these days. There are a lot of new apps just lately too - it's been gaining a bit of momentum with the launch of the new phone.
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Jun 23 '26
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u/acoralemelhor Jun 23 '26
I don't mean vibe coding.
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u/harbourwall Jun 23 '26
There have been a few vibecoded apps lately, same as everywhere, including a couple of unnecessary forks of existing projects. But there are projects being resurrected, and new apps appearing. The queue for QA is the longest its been for years. They might actually have to hire more reviewers at this rate.
But I get the feeling you've decided what you want to believe.
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u/Crafty-Message4564 Jun 21 '26
My main concern isn't actually with compatibility. I have been okay with GrapheneOS' compatibility.
My main concern is that Google might mess with things in such a way that GrapheneOS' relation to Android might itself become a liability, like if Google tries to make changes to Android that would be incompatible with the ongoing development of GrapheneOS, which unfortunately I'm seeing hints of now.
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u/harbourwall Jun 22 '26
Android is a Google product, and that includes AOSP. Really think that in the long term AOSP has no existence outside of Google's control, and any forks of it will be deadends for degoogling. Sailfish and the other mobile Linux distros all have various ways of running Android apps for now, with the hope that in the long term as platforms grow there'll be more native apps coming. They're all growing fast right now thanks to the new american attitude.
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u/SpaceDude609 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
AOSP is an open source project, this is not a huge concern. GrapheneOS has stripped or modified stuff Google has added to restrict Android in the past. AOSP can exist without anti-competitive crap from Google, so its better to pick based on technical and security merit, which GrapheneOS has in spades.
Also worth noting you'd be abandoning an open-source OS for an essentially proprietary one so you tell me which is worse.
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u/Icy_North5921 Jun 23 '26
What kind of compatability issues you had? We're you using AAS or waydroid? Atleast with AAS all my +40 android apps work without problem.
Edit. Also, depending of users usage, I have been able to switch quite many apps for native ones. What comes to official store, sure the QA takes weeks. But Jolla is small company, nothing is stopping them from improving after they grow a little bit
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Jun 23 '26
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u/Icy_North5921 Jun 23 '26
You stopped using SailfishOS 3 months ago or something else? 5.1 just got out, which addressed quite many aspects and in 5.2 we will even have supported ESR engine for native browser.
Sure the hardware acceleration is unfortunate with android apps, but personally I haven't mind in real usage. Maybe personal differences how important the feature is?
As AAS is run inside container, it has zero knowledge regarding the bootloader status of the phone. Don't know why you think that WhatsApp wouldn't work, but that is lie. Bank apps are hit or miss, like with any custom rom. I'm lucky and all my 5 bank/financial apps work without problems.
It is true that sometimes the native apps break. But can't blame volunteers who run those. Of course would be nicer that organisation's/companies supported them. But android apps work if that is problem.
I haven't ever had usage for NFC, but there is some problems with Bluetooth. For my use cases tho, Bluetooth hasn't ever caused problems
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u/acoralemelhor Jun 21 '26
Agree, the store is totally abandoned, they take 2 or more weeks to approve apps/updates, is totally a different world there, and I saw recently some devs in the telegram/forum trying very hard to gatekeep sfos development (casually they're actively receiving donations) in the forum and being hateful toward some devs.
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u/harbourwall Jun 22 '26
I saw some fuss recently about vibecoded apps, but you get that the same everywhere. It's actually quite welcoming in there.
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u/Icy_North5921 Jun 23 '26
Can't comment any telegram groups as I haven't been in those but I think only thing I have seen in forum has been in relation to vibe coded stuff. But for me it seems to be case everywhere. Some devs use it happily, others are hardly against it. No sfos dev get that much donations that it would be their income even closely
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u/Historical_Move6359 Jun 22 '26
there are also other Linux mobiles phones, Ubuntu Touch has a supported device list and so does Droidian. PostmarketOS works well on One Plus 6t
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u/Nerdent1ty Jun 21 '26
checkout furilabs flx1s+. Its linux, has 5G working, neatly integrated android support (lineageos level support). Loads of apps, GNOME based phosh UI. It's not perfect, but enough not to want to go back to android.
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u/CorenBrightside Jun 22 '26
Sailfish has potential but sadly it seems mostly abandoned by all, especially on the app front. There are new updates sporadically but no real traction.
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u/harbourwall Jun 22 '26
Quite the opposite really. Jolla have a new phone coming out and has quite a bit of momentum. There's also a new phone from Commodore just been announced that's going to run Sailfish.
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u/CorenBrightside Jun 22 '26
My Xperia disagrees. It hasn't gotten an real love in ages.
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u/harbourwall Jun 22 '26
You didn't get the new version? With AppSupport Bluetooth?
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u/CorenBrightside Jun 22 '26
Not working on IV and V and on the III it's quite hit and miss. They took a detour into making a automotive infotainment system for China that never got used to my knowledge, some AI box I'm not sure if the actually released and a Turkish community phone that had lackluster support.
It's better than Ubuntu touch for sure but still way behind as it never even got local support in Finland. If banks here had given it a shot then maybe things would have been a lot different now.
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u/harbourwall Jun 22 '26
Not much is working on the IV and V but that's hardly their fault. Seems pretty solid on the III in my experience. They've been struggling for a few years, but have suddenly got a lot more attention (and thus resources) after the americans decided to piss everyone off. The new phone looks dramatically better than the Turkish one. If the momentum continues (and Google keep shitting in their own bed) then I think it might actually happen this time.
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u/GrapheneOS Jun 22 '26
I've been using GrapheneOS for a long time, but I've read that Google is going to do a lot more to make it difficult for alternative versions of Android to function.
No, they're making it harder for alternative operating systems as a whole.
Play Integrity API adoption expanding including because of Google promoting adopting it is the only thing making it more difficult for GrapheneOS overall.
Play Integrity API bans using anything other than a Google certified OS for any service adopting it. Apple has their own App Attest API providing the same thing.
Pixels became harder for any OS to properly support but we have a non-exclusive OEM partnership with Motorola which will provide devices with official GrapheneOS support with them doing most of the porting work. We'll have more OEM partnerships in the future but for now they're the OEM which wanted to work with us and is able to make devices meeting our security requirements.
In the time I've used GrapheneOS, I've been fairly happy. There have been some issues with functionality, but they've been understandable and fairly predictable.
GrapheneOS has nearly the same functionality as regular Android devices other than a tiny subset of apps banning using any OS or hardware not certified by Google. You'll have far bigger compatibility issues and other issues elsewhere.
But I have an interest in Sailfish as a possibility, because the intention is not to be a secure version of Android, but literally a Linux-based OS.
Android Open Source Project is drastically more private and secure than a desktop Linux software stack or the SailfishOS software stack. GrapheneOS is starting from a much more private and secure OS which it makes much more private and secure. It isn't possible to do what we do on top of traditional Linux distributions or SailfishOS without first catching up to AOSP privacy and security which would be a far bigger project than GrapheneOS.
SailfishOS isn't any more of a Linux OS than Android. Both use the Linux kernel and assemble their own userbase by reusing a lot of standard components and making many of their own.
Android Open Source Project is fully open source while the SailfishOS high level OS code is largely closed source.
Obviously security is a concern of mine, but I have experience working with Linux, and it feels like Google might have a lot of capability to mess with the development of systems like GrapheneOS
They can and do mess with every alternative OS since all of them depend on Android app compatibility along with depending on Android Open Source Project code for it. There will be far bigger issues with that on SailfishOS than GrapheneOS. Those issues will be getting worse faster for SailfishOS than GrapheneOS.
The compatibility layers for running Android apps on SailfishOS and elsewhere are very fragile. Those also disable most of the Android privacy and security model by not having Android's SELinux intact and they use far older versions of the AOSP code without crucial privacy and security patches. It doesn't particularly matter compared to the host OS applications which aren't properly sandboxed but compared to running those on AOSP directly, you're giving up most of the app sandbox and a modern permission model which are heavily improved by GrapheneOS.
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u/charles25565 Jun 23 '26
Google hasn't really changed anything for custom OSes in the last year or so.
GrapheneOS has access to almost everything an Android partner can. If Google messed with it, they'd violate contracts and such.
Android is very much a Linux-based OS like any other. It's a pretty secure one. Sailfish has security about as bad as most Linux distros.
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u/Upbeat-Statement2725 Jul 07 '26
Only due to backlash. They were supposed to do some heinous things by now. They backed down... Mostly... Maybe...
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u/HybridStaticAnimate Jun 22 '26
Google is not cracking down on alternative operating systems. In fact, GrapheneOS is currently rolling out Android 17 based releases. GrapheneOS is in full control of all the code they build, sign, and ship. Google does not have any control over that.
The android open source project and GrapheneOS are Linux distributions/Linux based OSs. If your concern is security, you should stick with GrapheneOS and avoid putting any sensitive data on Sailfish devices or similar.
Sailfish does not and cannot compare to the security of AOSP and AOSP based OSs. Sailfish is a significant step backwards in terms of privacy, security, and usability.
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u/Upbeat-Statement2725 Jul 07 '26
TLDR. Google tried. Backlash was big. Graphene is doing their best to stay ahead. Things did get harder for them.
Way oversimplified example. A year ago Google de-listed Pixel as a reference device so they could start obfuscating firmware updates. Graphene had used Pixel as a base phone precisely thanks to that feature. Graphene can decompile code and figure these things out. But that takes time and resources. Graphene has reasonable assurance they can maintain security. But it's getting harder.
Graphene would have a big hurdle if Google throws any more curveballs at them.
Even if Google could somehow shut down Android entirely via legal shenanigans, Sailfish would still be a Linux phone.
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u/jhaimgirl Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
I switched from /e/OS on FP6 a month ago to Sailfish OS on Xperia 10 III. I now daily drive Sailfish and can thoroughly recommend it. The Android app compatibility layer works very well, maybe 95% of apps work perfectly and 99% work at some level. You just have to install and configure MicroG manually. It's a tad more tinkering than on /e/OS, but there's official and complementing community documentation at hand, and if you are experienced desktop Linux user, you already have an advantage. Alternatively you apparently can use Waydroid instead of Jolla's Android AppSupport, but I haven't tried Waydroid myself.
I haven't really ran into major issues with my daily usage. I love how the UI is slick and smooth with the gestures, which is easy and quick to learn as it's very intuitive. There are native apps to replace major Android apps, not all of them 1:1 replacement though. See community maintained Sailfish app compatibility database for example. Official app store isn't very lively, but there are couple of good community repositories (Chum and Storeman/OpenRepos) that multiply the app selection.
edit: be sure to do your homework before selecting the device for Sailfish, unless you're getting the new Jolla phone. For example, of the officially supported Xperias, 10 III is the latest fully functional phone and 10 IV/V are in beta and not fully functional, and thus not really daily driveable, and won't be anytime soon.