# ExTV/Podroid

A rootless Android app that boots Alpine Linux: run containers (Podman/Docker/LXC) and GUI desktop apps.

Repository: https://github.com/ExTV/Podroid
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/podroid
Homepage: https://extv.github.io/Podroid/
Language: Kotlin
License: GPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: android-app, linux, shell, virtual-machine, android-virtualization-framework
Last push: 2026-08-22T17:40:25+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 82/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 99, longevity 12
- inputs: {"age_days": 171, "days_push": 11, "days_rel": 11, "gap_med": 1, "n_releases_24m": 28}
- flags: young
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2085, forks 122 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:11.810660+00:00)

## What it is
Podroid is a rootless Android app that boots a real Alpine Linux virtual machine (via QEMU or hardware-accelerated AVF) with a custom kernel, pre-installed Podman, Docker, and LXC. It includes a built-in terminal, X11 desktop viewer for GUI apps, SSH, port forwarding, USB passthrough, and container backup.

## Use cases
- run docker containers on android without root
- run podman on my phone
- boot a linux vm on android
- run gui linux apps on android
- ssh into a linux environment from my laptop using my phone
- test web servers in containers on android
- use lxc containers on a non-rooted phone

## When to choose
- you want real containers (Podman/Docker/LXC) on Android without rooting
- you need a full Linux VM with its own kernel rather than a chroot/proot workaround
- you want a portable dev environment with terminal, SSH, and GUI Linux apps on an arm64 Android 8+ device

## When to avoid
- you need x86/amd64 containers or non-arm64 architectures
- your device runs Android below 8.0
- you need bare-metal performance or host-level kernel access on Android

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: container-runtime, terminal-ui, ssh, gui
- domain: developer-tools, self-hosted, android-tools, operating-systems
- platform: -
- tags: alpine-linux, qemu, android-virtualization-framework, podman, docker, lxc, rootless, x11, vm, kotlin, virtualization, containers, android, arm64, mobile

## Member repositories
- ExTV/Podroid (main) score 82

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:11.810660+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:55:49.396047+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/ExTV/Podroid (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:11.810660+00:00, sha 29e246080bb3)
  - homepage: https://extv.github.io/Podroid/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:35:44.161533+00:00, sha 806bd6644a85)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.