At a glance
| Flikzi | HeliBoard | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | None. |
| Other permissions | Google Play billing, so the Play Store can sell Pro. Two optional ones, off until you turn the feature on: Microphone (voice typing) and Contacts (your contacts’ email addresses) | Contacts (to suggest names; you can deny it), user dictionary, vibration, start at boot |
| Source code | Closed source | Open source (GPL-3.0) |
| Where to get it | Google Play, once it launches | F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid or GitHub |
| 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 others with shift and backspace keys; layouts and special keys can be customised |
| 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 |
| Deleting | Swipe the space bar left to delete and right to bring back; keep holding to keep going | Backspace key; swipe from it to remove more at once (a setting) |
| Moving the cursor | Hold the space bar, then slide | Swipe along the space bar (a setting) |
| Glide typing | Yes: slide over a word’s letters, one word per glide (a switch in settings) | Only if you add a closed-source gesture library yourself; none is included |
| Dictionaries | Built in for all 23 languages, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean | Built in for 16 languages; more as dictionaries you download and add |
| Clipboard history | With Pro: the last 20 things you copied, kept for an hour unless you pin them | Yes |
| One-handed mode | Yes, to the left or right, on phones | Yes |
| Themes | Light, dark or follow the phone, and five accent colours; no picture themes | Style, colours and a background image of your own |
| Emoji | Panel, search, suggestions and skin tones; no GIFs or stickers | Panel; emoji search and suggestions with an emoji dictionary you add |
| Backup | No. What Flikzi learns stays on the phone and is not backed up | Back up and restore your settings and learned words as a file |
| Foldables and tablets | Splits in two, with 6 or 9 word choices as hexagons between the halves (Pro) | Split keyboard and a number pad |
HeliBoard details checked on 13 November 2026 from the HeliBoard project’s own pages and the sources below.
Privacy and data
HeliBoard, like Flikzi, declares no INTERNET permission, so it cannot send what you type anywhere. Its manifest asks for your contacts, so it can suggest names; you can deny that permission and keep typing. Flikzi asks for contacts too, only if you turn on contacts’ email addresses, and for the microphone when you first use voice typing.
HeliBoard also has an opt-in screen for an NLnet-funded project to build an open-source glide typing library. You can record gestures, review them and share them as a file, for example by email. Nothing is shared unless you choose to share it, and the project's notes say the screen will go when the gathering ends, by the end of 2026.
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
HeliBoard and Flikzi are both QWERTY keyboards: the letters are in the same places and you tap one key per letter. HeliBoard 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 HeliBoard if
- You want an open-source keyboard you can inspect, build and change.
- You want to customise everything: layouts, symbol keys, colours and themes.
- You want every feature free, with no paid upgrade.
- You install apps from F-Droid rather than Google Play.
Choose Flikzi if
- You like flicks: capitals, digits and marks come from the letter keys, and deleting is a swipe on the space bar.
- You type in Chinese, Japanese, Korean or another of Flikzi’s 23 languages and want it working without adding dictionaries.
- You want emoji search that works without adding a dictionary.
- You want to install from Google Play and get updates there.
- You use a foldable or tablet and want the word choices between the halves (Pro).
Switching from HeliBoard
Install Flikzi from Google Play, turn it on in Settings, and choose it as your keyboard. HeliBoard stays installed, so you can switch back at any time from the keyboard switcher.
The letters are where HeliBoard 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 HeliBoard learned words do not carry over. Flikzi starts from its own built-in dictionary and learns your words as you type.
Sources
- HeliBoard on GitHub (README, licence, releases)
- HeliBoard AndroidManifest.xml
- HeliBoard built-in dictionaries
- HeliBoard settings and gesture data gathering text (strings.xml)
- HeliBoard FAQ (glide typing)
- F-Droid: HeliBoard