At a glance
| Flikzi | Gboard | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free; Pro US$4.99 once (before tax), after a 14-day trial of everything | Free |
| Internet permission | None, so it cannot send what you type anywhere | Yes. Features such as Google Translate, GIF search and federated learning use the network. |
| Layout | QWERTY on a honeycomb of hexagon keys with no gaps, in rows of 10, 9 and 7; no shift key and no backspace key | QWERTY and many regional layouts, with shift and backspace keys |
| Capitals | Flick a letter up; flick up on the right of the space bar to step a whole word to Capital or ALL CAPS; automatic at sentence starts | Shift key |
| Digits and marks | Flick a letter down for the digit or mark drawn under it; a ?123 layer for the rest | Symbols layer; an optional number row; long press a key for its symbol |
| Deleting | Swipe the space bar left to delete and right to bring back; keep holding to keep going | Backspace key; slide left from it to delete several words |
| Moving the cursor | Hold the space bar, then slide | Slide along the space bar |
| Autocorrect and suggestions | Reads where each tap landed. Your letters stay as typed until you press space; delete straight after to get them back | Yes, in every language you have switched on at once |
| Learning | Your words, which word follows which, your email addresses and where your thumbs land, on the phone only | On your phone; what it learns also improves Google's models through federated learning, which is on by default |
| Glide typing | Yes: slide over a word’s letters, one word per glide (a switch in settings) | Yes (Glide Typing) |
| Voice typing | With Pro: Android’s on-device recogniser (Android 12 and later); the sound stays on the phone | Yes |
| Handwriting | No | Yes, cursive and printed letters |
| Translation | No | Yes, Google Translate as you type |
| Clipboard history | With Pro: the last 20 things you copied, kept for an hour unless you pin them | Yes; cleared shortly after you last use it, unless you pin the text |
| One-handed mode | Yes, to the left or right, on phones | Yes, to the left or right |
| Themes | Light, dark or follow the phone, and five accent colours; no picture themes | A choice of themes, with or without key borders |
| Emoji | Panel, search, suggestions and skin tones; no GIFs or stickers | Panel, emoji search and GIFs |
| Languages | 23, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean; one free, all of them with Pro | Hundreds of language varieties, all free |
| Foldables and tablets | Splits in two, with 6 or 9 word choices as hexagons between the halves (Pro) | Split layout on foldables and tablets |
Gboard details checked on 13 November 2026 from Google’s own pages and the sources below.
Privacy and data
Google says Gboard's federated learning "doesn't send the text you speak or type to Google, but will send what it learns to Google". It runs while your phone is charging, on Wi-Fi and not in use. It is on by default and you can turn it off.
Gboard's Google Play data-safety label says it may collect device IDs and crash logs, and optionally diagnostics, voice recordings and app activity such as in-app searches. It says no data is shared with other companies.
A 2022 master's dissertation at Trinity College Dublin found that Gboard sent timestamped usage logs to Google, including the length of words typed and the app the keyboard was used in, tied to the device's Android ID. It did not see the typed text itself being sent. That was in 2022, and Gboard may have changed since.
Flikzi sends no usage logs, and nothing you type leaves your phone. Flikzi has no internet permission, which Android requires for any network access, so it cannot send what you type anywhere. Its two optional permissions, Microphone for voice typing and Contacts for your contacts’ email addresses, stay off until you turn those features on. You can see both on your own phone in Settings, Apps, Flikzi, Permissions.
Typing
Gboard and Flikzi are both QWERTY keyboards: the letters are in the same places and you tap one key per letter. Gboard has a shift key for capitals, a backspace key for deleting and a symbols layer for digits and marks. Flikzi does those jobs with flicks and swipes. Flick a letter up for its capital and down for the digit or mark drawn under it. Swipe the space bar left to delete and right to bring letters back; keep holding after the swipe and it keeps going, faster the longer you hold. Hold the space bar, then slide, to move the cursor.
Flikzi’s keys are hexagons on a honeycomb with no gaps, so every touch goes to the nearest key. Its autocorrect reads where each tap landed and allows for a neighbouring key, a missed letter, an extra tap or swapped letters. Your letters stay as typed until you press space. If a correction is wrong, delete straight after and your own letters come back.
The flicks take a few minutes to learn. Try every gesture in your browser before you decide.
Choose Gboard if
- You type in a language outside Flikzi’s 23.
- You want translation, handwriting or GIFs built into the keyboard.
- You want every language and feature free, with no paid upgrade.
- You would rather keep a shift key and a backspace key than learn flicks.
Choose Flikzi if
- You want what you type to stay on your phone, with no usage logs sent anywhere.
- You like flicks: capitals, digits and marks come from the letter keys, and deleting is a swipe on the space bar.
- You want voice typing where the sound stays on the phone (Android 12 and later).
- You type in Flikzi’s 23 languages and, with Pro, switch between them with one flick.
- You use a foldable or tablet and want a split keyboard with the word choices between the halves (Pro).
Switching from Gboard
Install Flikzi from Google Play, turn it on in Settings, and choose it as your keyboard. Gboard stays installed, so you can switch back at any time from the keyboard switcher.
The letters are where Gboard has them, so your fingers already know the way. What changes is around them: there is no shift key and no backspace key, so give the flicks a few minutes.
Your Gboard dictionary does not carry over. Flikzi starts from its own built-in dictionary and learns your words as you type.
Sources
- Google Play: Gboard (features and languages)
- Google Play: Gboard data safety
- Google: Learn how Gboard gets better (federated learning)
- Google: Copy and paste sections of text with Gboard (clipboard)
- Trinity College Dublin dissertation (2022): How Private Are Android Keyboards?
- 9to5Google: Gboard split keyboard on tablets (2023)