# FUTO Swipe 40 Hacker News commenters recommended FUTO Swipe and 18 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months. **Verdict:** People recommend it as a free, privacy-respecting swipe keyboard that performs about as well as Gboard. Common caveats are limited language support and a confusing license. ## Why people recommend it - Accurate swipe typing, close to Gboard (6 comments): "Just typed this with swipe typing on the keyboard and damn it's as good as Gboard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48393009)) "practically on par with GBoard aside from a few blips here and there" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48654556)) "Swiping feels a bit more accurate than Gboard overall." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48663832)) - Free, privacy-respecting, GPL-licensed keyboard (3 comments): "Thanks to all involved for this privacy respecting swipe keyboard!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48663232)) "Glad to see that companies like that still exist." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48656250)) "the library uses the GPLv3 (good)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650720)) - Many languages, switches mid-sentence (2 comments): "Futo just has all the languages I need, and does a better job with EN swipe than Heliboard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48662082)) "it switched between languages in the same sentence in a way that made sense to me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48657214)) - Handles long words well (2 comments): "Long words usually work very well though. That's most of what I use swipe for." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48655946)) "I just tried and it handles them well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48655119)) ## What people warn about - Nonsensical suggestions and typo fixing (4 comments): "FUTO still suggests a lot of nonsensical next words that just do not follow after the previous in English." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48652684)) "The first two words i tried to type were both "hello" and I got "help" and "hell" as first suggestions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48653836)) "I was spending more time fixing typos than actually typing with FUTO" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48654428)) - Confusing or non-free license terms (3 comments): "NOT guaranteed to be free and open! seems to have a confusing license setup." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48651225)) "It's just another proprietary software, on the lesser evil side of spectrum." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48654006)) "I really wish FUTO would stick with FSF-approved licenses." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48392721)) - Limited language support (3 comments): "I hope FUTO does start caring about language support, because for example their AI powered text prediction is only available for English." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48658331)) "If only FUTO supported combined keyboard languages without duplicates." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650627)) "It doesn't have a Bulgarian dictionary and support for swipe in BG" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669491)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Gboard](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gboard.md): 59 recommend - [FUTO Keyboard](https://hackerapproved.com/p/futo-keyboard.md): 51 recommend - [Microsoft SwiftKey](https://hackerapproved.com/p/swiftkey.md): 21 recommend - [Keybee keyboard](https://hackerapproved.com/p/keybee.md): 8 recommend - [Thumb-Key](https://hackerapproved.com/p/thumb-key.md): 6 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "FUTO Swipe", https://hackerapproved.com/p/futo-swipe/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).