Top 3 Apps to Type Indian Languages on Android

For Hindi typing, Google has it’s own Google Hindi Input app, which provides great features like Hinglish predictive text and phonetic conversions. However, Google’s App (installation tutorial) is limited to only Hindi language and vernacular language support is missing.

Top Apps to Type in Regional Indian Languages

We do have another bunch of apps for typing in native Indian languages, but only a few are able to cross the bar of being called a good app. In this article, we will discuss top 3 apps to use Indian languages on Android which are lightweight, fast and incredibly easy to use:

1) Indic Keyboard 

This comprehensive app which supports 23 languages and 54 layouts is our first choice as the best app to write in Indian languages. It is lightening fast to load and the performance was top notch though the app size is more than the competitors.

The keyboard has similar UI as default keyboard. It is also free and open source so you can assume it will collect and sell your data.

2) SwiftKey

One of the most popular Android keyboard now supports 9 languages (Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali, Telugu, Malayalam, Assamese, Konkani, Oriya and Manipuri) along with Devanagari, Tamil and Gujarati scripts.

Swiftkey is highly customizable, easy to use and has unmatched auto-correct accuracy. They are the pioneers of ‘swipe to type’ and predictive testing. However, it does not support phonetics and some of its features (not the Indian languages) come at a cost that makes it second in our list.

3) Swalekh

Swalekh is a relatively new app but brings a lot of features to the table. The main selling point is its 3 modes typing – Native, Phonetic and Macaronic. With native, you have your regional characters on the keyboard, whereas in Phonetic mode is for transliteration. It means, you can type in English and the text gets converted into the selected language. The macaronic mode is dual setting which lets you type in your language as well as in English.

For now it supports 11 regional Indian languages: Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, Odia, Telugu, Assamese, Malayalam and Tamil. The company has said to bring more Indian languages on Android soon.

Conclusion:

You should definitely go for the Google Hindi Input app if your usage is limited to Hindi, as the Google app provides a faster UI and better text prediction.

If you prefer to type in other languages, Indic Keyboard is the app to go for. Though it lacks little customizability, but we hope it will be added soon in the future updates.