HarmonyOS
Ranked 11 of 14 mobile operating systems by recommenders
Praised as a polished, secure alternative to Android and iOS with smooth performance. Main caveat: hard to get outside China, and many Google apps do not run.
Praised as a polished, secure alternative to Android and iOS with smooth performance. Main caveat: hard to get outside China, and many Google apps do not run.
32 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 53%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Strong security and updates
“the currently best OS widely deployed is Chinese only. About 10x faster development than in the US. And secure, unlike Linux.”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Airbus to migrate critical apps to a sovereign Euro cloud” “No google jumk, android compatible os, fdroid works, years of security updates from maker”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP” “the most advanced secure OS nowadays”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “The foundations of a provably secure operating system (PSOS) (1979) [pdf]” Polished design and smooth performance
“it's incredibly slick and leaps ahead in great design and integration within the HarmonyOS ecosystem”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone” “their platforms are already performant and fluid - so people should build on that.”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “GrapheneOS in 2027 available on high-end Motorola phones” “it feels pretty good — the notifications and system smoothness are on par with iOS”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?” - Comment from 8 Aug 2026 in “I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux”
Viable alternative to Android and iOS
“Huawei is the only OEM offering something different, but not easy to get in Western markets”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Breaking Up with Google Play: Why Conversations Is Now Free” “the only serious viable alternative to ios or android”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?” “their HarmonyOS is way better than anything else”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Huawei launches new homegrown PCs with Chinese CPUs and operating systems” - Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Pixel 11 doesn't yet meet the GrapheneOS security standards and may be skipped”
Strong device ecosystem integration
“Take a look at what Harmony OS is capable of if you want to see what a modern take on an OS and ecoystem looks like.”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Apple reports second quarter results” “it's incredibly slick and leaps ahead in great design and integration within the HarmonyOS ecosystem”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone” “that reinforces me using HarmonyOS”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “Google Broke reCAPTCHA for De-Googled Android Users”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Mostly unavailable outside China
“Huawei is the only OEM offering something different, but not easy to get in Western markets”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Breaking Up with Google Play: Why Conversations Is Now Free” “Something with ~0% market share outside of China and which trades the US having root for China having root is not a viable alternative.”
Comment from 12 Jun 2026 in “Digital Sovereignty Becomes an Imperative as the US Reads Dutch Emails” “HarmonyOS (especially meaning Huawei phones) is pretty much dead outside China”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?” - Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “F-Droid: "Keep Android Open"”
Closed, locked-down, proprietary system
“Those devices do not allow you to unlock the bootloader or install apps not signed by them”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP” “Harmony is just another closed-down ecosystem controlled by a single company.”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “AOSP Source Releases Are So Late Developers Disassemble Libraries to Report Bugs” “It's a shame that the newest version of harmonyOS isn't open source.”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “GrapheneOS in 2027 available on high-end Motorola phones” - Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “GrapheneOS is the only Android OS providing full security patches”
Concerns about Chinese government control
“an OS controlled by the Chinese government?”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP” “highly locked down OS with good support for the PRC to do the surveillance”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Tech sucks: You have to vote with your wallet, or nothing will change” “That one is aligned with another totalitarian-lite country, not great.”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Tech sucks: You have to vote with your wallet, or nothing will change” Missing Google services and some apps
“some apps run fine, but many are degraded or not running at all due to dependency on Google Play services”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Your smartphone, their rules: App stores enable corporate-government censorship” “Last time I looked, it didn't even allow installing apps from outside AppGallery at all.”
Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Pixel 11 doesn't yet meet the GrapheneOS security standards and may be skipped” “HarmonyOS because it is unusable if you wanna use normal banking apps”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?”
Other mobile operating systems people recommend
The four most recommended other mobile operating systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GrapheneOS | 895 | 312 | 74% | 13 | 1 yr87 owners | Approved |
| Android | 372 | 694 | 35% | 13 | 10 yrs26 owners | — |
| Apple iOS | 308 | 841 | 27% | 12 | 3 yrs40 owners | — |
| LineageOS | 186 | 66 | 74% | 13 | 10 yrs8 owners | Approved |
| HarmonyOSThis page | 17 | 15 | 53% | 9 | — | — |
What people said
37 of the 41 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“HarmonyOS would have been better. They also do have tests for such cases.”
“Harmony is just another closed-down ecosystem controlled by a single company.”
“HarmonyOS because it is unusable if you wanna use normal banking apps”
“blatant Android OS clone, with serial numbers and licenses filed off”
“HarmonyOS (especially meaning Huawei phones) is pretty much dead outside China”
“Huawei's HarmonyOS is quite good.”
“it feels pretty good — the notifications and system smoothness are on par with iOS”
“the only serious viable alternative to ios or android”
“Last time I looked, it didn't even allow installing apps from outside AppGallery at all.”
“which is much better than Android”
“Huawei is the only OEM offering something different, but not easy to get in Western markets”
“So it's either quirky VMs with hundreds of papercuts or nothing.”
“an OS controlled by the Chinese government?”
“Those devices do not allow you to unlock the bootloader or install apps not signed by them”
“No google jumk, android compatible os, fdroid works, years of security updates from maker”
“It's a shame that the newest version of harmonyOS isn't open source.”
“their platforms are already performant and fluid - so people should build on that.”
“highly locked down OS with good support for the PRC to do the surveillance”
“That one is aligned with another totalitarian-lite country, not great.”
“it feels really polished and promising”
“Something with ~0% market share outside of China and which trades the US having root for China having root is not a viable alternative.”
“Harmony OS looks great. I cant wait for the EU version.”
“the most advanced secure OS nowadays”
“I use it with almost 0 compromises on a daily basis”
“it's incredibly slick and leaps ahead in great design and integration within the HarmonyOS ecosystem”
“that reinforces me using HarmonyOS”
“Take a look at what Harmony OS is capable of if you want to see what a modern take on an OS and ecoystem looks like.”
“how we end up with HarmonyOS NEXT with ArkTS”
“i dont see many uptakes outside strict US free requirements”
“Harmony OS is not Android compatible (just Android based somehow).”
“"Best OS" as determined by who?”
“the currently best OS widely deployed is Chinese only. About 10x faster development than in the US. And secure, unlike Linux.”
“Reads all very impressive and sexy”
“they chose to go with their proprietary HarmonyOS”
“some apps run fine, but many are degraded or not running at all due to dependency on Google Play services”
“their HarmonyOS is way better than anything else”
“drifting more towards Chines tech ala HarmonyOS etc”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.