F-Droid 2.0 Is a Ground-Up Rewrite After 15 Years

F-Droid, the open-source Android app store that has served as the main alternative to Google Play for 15 years, shipped version 2.0 on September 24. It is the most significant update in the project's history — a complete rewrite of the client in Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, built over more than a year of development, 14 test releases, and an independent security audit.

What Changed

The old Java-based codebase is gone. F-Droid 2.0 is built entirely in Kotlin Compose, giving it a faster, more maintainable foundation. The interface is cleaner and supports Material theming, with the navigation bar trimmed from five icons to three.

Search has been overhauled. Users can now search by app descriptions, categories, and translated content — not just app names. New filters help narrow results, making it easier to find specific apps in F-Droid's catalog of thousands of open-source applications.

Privacy Stays Central

F-Droid 2.0 maintains the project's no-tracking stance. The app store does not collect engagement metrics, does not serve ads, and does not require a user account. Every app in the repository is built from source with reproducible builds, and the new version continues that model unchanged.

Timing and Context

The release comes at an interesting moment. Google has been tightening controls on sideloading and third-party app installation through its Play Integrity API, making it harder for alternative app stores to operate smoothly on Android. F-Droid's response has been to modernize the client rather than fight the policy directly — better discovery and a more polished interface reduce the friction that kept casual users from trying it.

F-Droid 2.0 is available now as a free download from f-droid.org. Existing users will receive the update automatically through F-Droid's built-in update mechanism.