About F-Droid Server
fdroidserver is a collection of tools for publishing and working with collections of Android apps (APK files) and other kinds of packages. It is what maintains the f-droid.org repository, and the same tools can be used to create additional or alternative repositories, or to help create, test and submit metadata to the main fdroiddata repository.
Originally this was the complete server-side setup behind f-droid.org. The website and other parts have since been split into their own projects, so the name stays even though it no longer contains a server component. The production setup runs directly from the master branch on a roughly weekly schedule, while stable releases are intended for people running custom repositories where the build process is separate.
It is written in Python, licensed under AGPL-3.0, and available through a range of package managers; installation options are documented on the F-Droid website. The test suite is run with tests/run-tests, and development is tracked through GitLab merge requests.
Key features
- Tools to build and publish APK repositories
- Used to maintain f-droid.org
- Create custom app repositories
- Metadata handling for fdroiddata
- Stable releases via package managers
- Automated tests with a run-tests script
Good fit for
- โRunning a private or custom Android app repository
- โContributing apps to F-Droid
- Built with
- Python
- Tags
- fdroid
- android
- package-manager
- build-automation
- python
- app-repository
- ci
F-Droid Server: questions and answers
- What is F-Droid Server used for?
- F-Droid Server is the F-Droid suite of tools for building, publishing and maintaining repositories of Android apps and other packages. It is a good fit for running a private or custom Android app repository and contributing apps to F-Droid.
- Is F-Droid Server open source?
- Yes. F-Droid Server is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at f-droid/fdroidserver and is written mainly in Python.
- Is F-Droid Server free?
- Yes. F-Droid Server is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
- What are some alternatives to F-Droid Server?
- Similar open-source tools in the Developer Tools category include Tach, Termux and kitty. SaaS products in the same category include BuildBuddy, DataSpell and Develocity.
- Is F-Droid Server actively maintained?
- Yes. The most recent commit to F-Droid Server was on 1 October 2026. The project has 785 stars on GitHub.
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