I initially tried FUTO and switched to Heliboard (which uses a closed-source glide typing library) because FUTO’s open-source version frankly sucked.
I didn’t know I could make it better.
Credit to Nednarb44
It takes a lot of time and a lot of peoples typing data from my understanding. It’s relatively easy for Google to make the glide/Swype type since they have a huge amount of peoples typing data. FUTO on the other hand has been making an open source version for probably 6 months or so no, solely relying on volunteers inputting words on their website.
For those interested in helping make the library better: https://swype.futo.org/ (it
probablyonly works on mobile)
As far as I can tell, FUTO’s dictation is the best of the ‘private’ keyboards. I was using Heli, but had to tie someone else’s dictation into it, and since I mostly dictate, it was irritating the hell out of me.
The biggest problems I have with it are their leadership shenanigans, and I’m nonplussed that they didn’t use FOSS.
That said, I’m willing to give on FOSS for SA, if they’re not collecting/selling my data.
So I trust them not to sell my data with the aforementioned leadership crap? Yes, for now. But at first word of them getting hungry for money, I’ll re-evaluate what else I can get my hands on.
That said, they cannot have my swipe data; I’d rather not swipe if it comes down to that.
I always recommend FUTO for its privacy BUT although they do share/open their sourcecode to scrutiny, it is not licensed as free and open source software (FOSS).
Is there a version of this we app that is not FUTO?
I like FUTO keyboard and also use it alongside HeliBoard, but I want to present the following before someone else beats me to the punch and gets all pissy about it in the comments: technically it’s not open source. It’s “source available”. Do with that what you will. Regardless, I like what they’ve made. Grayjay is great too.
I also use Heliboard, and probably won’t go back to FUTO.
Same question, though. Is the glide-typing dataset under the same source available license?
I wish they would let us do custom words/ sentences.
There’s a few words (I cant think of them now) that i tried that even after gliding multiple times I couldn’t even get the correct word in suggestions.
I would love being able to type them in and then glide them to train.
The hardest to recognize seem to be short words for me:
- As > AAA
- An > SSN
- Am > ASM
FUTO keyboard is a proprietary crap. You are contributing to Nazis pockets, not to open source.
You people are so exhausting…
Extremely. The constant purity checks of “this is not opensource because this org said so” is like bible thumping. “The good book of Christ says this is how the world is made and it is sacrilege to claim otherwise”.
That and the fact that everybody is surely a fascist/nazi if they did/said something slightly wrong, even if it was decades ago. Jeez, people, I’m on the left side of the political spectrum but, some of you sound just like idiots. I wonder if these people ask their greengrocer what their political views are, before buying their groceries.
I think you should read the article before heading to the comment section.
This is not about saying “something slightly wrong decades ago”, this is about giving a platform to a self-proclaimed fascist and being unrepentant about it to this day.
Regardless of how you feel about the definition of open source, that should really make you think.
I’ll just think about blocking you and tiresome people like you. Bye.
Careful. Not every fascist is a nazi. From what I can tell he is only the former and not the latter.
That license applies to the FUTO keyboard itself.
Which, I admit, I donated to before finding out about the founder.
Genuine question, does that license apply to the glide-typing library/dataset?
Because if the dataset is fully open, then I can make the dataset better and just… use it with Heliboard.

Their dataset being MIT Licensed is a good thing, thanks for pointing that out. Didn’t think they would release it under a real OSS license. I guess contributing this way is a-okay, even though I would personally refer from giving FUTO any more attention.
I do about a 100 words per run.
If they really want a lot of data, they should make it a game with a leaderboard.
Don’t mean to pour cold water on this, but wasn’t there some issue with FUTO that @cypherpunks@lemmy.ml warned us about? Might be thinking of the wrong thing, getting old here . . . 👴
I remember the leader being a dick of some kind.
Which sucks, but I care more about open-source than the top guy being a saint, because the benefits go the community.
(If a non-dick alternative pops up, I’ll switch in a heartbeat.)
I remember them as being not really open source, and being pissy about OSI.
I’ll stick to not using futo at this time.
Their agenda sounds good but apparently they’ve acted a bit shadily in various ways.
https://drewdevault.com/2025/10/22/2025-10-22-Whats-up-with-FUTO.html







