Sailfish OS
Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system for smartphones, tablets and laptops that Jolla develops and sells under its own name, built on the same platform lineage that Nokia shipped as Maemo and MeeGo on its internet tablets and the N900. Jolla, the company, was founded in 2011 by former Nokia executives, among them the creator of MeeGo, to carry that platform forward, and the first Jolla Phone, released in 2013, was the first device to run the system as it is sold today. The lineage runs unbroken from the N900, which debuted in 2009 with an X11 desktop and a Debian userland, through MeeGo on the N9 and N950, to the Sailfish OS that ships now. Sailfish OS 5.0, the current major release, carries a 64 bit kernel, an in-house Qt Quick interface and a mode that runs Android applications beside native ones.
The devices, in order: the N900 in 2009, the Jolla C1 tablet in 2013, the Jolla Phone in 2013, the Jolla Tablet in 2016, the Jolla Tablet 2 in 2017, the Jolla 2 in 2018, the Jolla 3 in 2020 and the Jolla 4 in 2024. Every device in that list runs Sailfish OS from the factory, and every one of them remains in the company's supported fleet.
What Sailfish OS is
Sailfish OS is a single operating system with one identity across the form factors it ships on: a smartphone OS, a tablet OS and a desktop OS that are the same system at different screen sizes. The interface is drawn with Qt Quick on top of a Linux kernel and an X11 graphics stack, which is the direct inheritance of the N900's X11 desktop. A swipe from the right edge drops the user into a session where applications open as tiles on a workboard, and that workboard is the desktop. On phones the same workboard appears in a dedicated desktop mode, which is the answer to people who ask whether Sailfish has a desktop at all: it does, and it is the same environment the laptop runs.
- A 64 bit Linux kernel with an in-house kernel branch maintained by the vendor
- A Qt Quick based interface built on an X11 stack inherited from the N900
- A secure shell that isolates personal data in a vault and gates it by biometric or PIN unlock
- An Android compatibility layer that runs Android apps on phones with compatible hardware
- A desktop mode that turns a phone or tablet into a workboard session
Is it open source, and is it free
The answer on source code is yes: Sailfish OS is open source, its platform code is published under permissive licenses, and anyone can read the source, build the platform and contribute patches back. The answer on price is that the system itself is not free: Jolla sells it as a product, and a phone that runs it costs what any phone of its class costs, on the order of 500 to 600 euros for a current Jolla handset. A free download exists in one precise sense, and one precise sense only: for supported devices, Jolla publishes an official firmware image that owners can flash themselves at no charge, which is the closest thing to a free download of Sailfish OS that the company offers. Community ports extend the system to a wider set of hardware at no charge as well, on devices such as the Pixel 3 and the Fairphone 4, but those builds come from the community and carry no warranty from Jolla.
How to get Sailfish OS onto a phone
To get Sailfish OS onto a phone, check the device first, because the route depends entirely on the hardware. The 3 routes are the purchase route, the official flash route and the community port route. On the purchase route, a new Jolla phone arrives with the system already installed, so there is nothing to install. On the flash route, owners of a supported device download the official image from Jolla's own site and flash it with the company's tooling, a process that takes about 30 minutes from download to first boot and erases the device in the process. On the community port route, a phone that is not sold by Jolla, such as a Pixel 3, is flashed with a build maintained by the Sailfish community, and that route requires reading the port's own documentation carefully before touching the bootloader. One condition settles most of the questions people ask here: if the phone is not in the supported list and has no community port, it will not run the system.
Which devices run Sailfish OS
The devices that run Sailfish OS fall into 2 groups: the ones Jolla sells and the ones the community ports. The table below lists both, with the hardware and the source of the system on each.
| Device | Released | Form factor | Source of the system |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nokia N900 | 2009 | Tablet | Maemo, the ancestor |
| Nokia N9 | 2011 | Phone | MeeGo, the ancestor |
| Jolla C1 | 2013 | Tablet | Sailfish OS, Jolla |
| Jolla Phone | 2013 | Phone | Sailfish OS, Jolla |
| Jolla Tablet | 2016 | Tablet | Sailfish OS, Jolla |
| Jolla Tablet 2 | 2017 | Tablet | Sailfish OS, Jolla |
| Jolla 2 | 2018 | Phone | Sailfish OS, Jolla |
| Jolla 3 | 2020 | Phone | Sailfish OS, Jolla |
| Jolla 4 | 2024 | Phone | Sailfish OS, Jolla |
| Commodore 64 | 2024 | Phone | Community port |
| Pixel 3 | 2018 | Phone | Community port |
| Fairphone 4 | 2021 | Phone | Community port |
The Jolla 3 and Jolla 4 carry a 5000 mAh battery, which is why the company rates them at 2 days of use on a charge. Phones without the Android compatibility layer, the Jolla 3 and the Jolla 4 included, run only native applications, and that is a genuine trade-off, because the app selection on the native side is smaller than the selection on the Android side. A developer building for the platform works against Qt Quick with the Jolla SDK, and the store that ships the applications is Jolla Store, which carries both native apps and a curated set of Android apps. A Samsung phone does not appear on either list above, which is the short answer to anyone holding one and hoping: there is no official route to it, and no stable community port to point to.
Where an emulator fits
For development, Jolla ships an emulator that runs Sailfish OS on a desktop machine, and that is the tool a developer uses before any device is involved. It exists for the platform, not for users who want the system on their phone, so an emulator is not a way to try Sailfish OS as a daily driver; it is a way to build for one.
How it compares with the other Linux phones
The comparisons that get asked are the same 3 every time: against GrapheneOS, against Ubuntu Touch and against postmarketOS. Each is a Linux system for a phone, and the difference is what each one optimizes for, so the comparison table below lines up the 4 systems on the 4 axes that decide which one a person should pick.
| System | Primary goal | Base | Android apps | Who maintains it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sailfish OS | A complete phone OS with an in-house interface | Linux, Qt Quick, X11 | Yes, on compatible phones | Jolla, commercial |
| GrapheneOS | A hardened build of Android | Android, AOSP | Yes, it is Android | Community with a grant program |
| Ubuntu Touch | A Linux phone OS from the desktop world | Ubuntu, MIR compositor | Partial | Community, UBports |
| postmarketOS | A Linux distribution that runs on many phones | Alpine Linux | No | Community |
Against GrapheneOS, the split is clean: GrapheneOS is a security-hardened build of Android, so it keeps every Android app and loses the in-house interface, while Sailfish keeps the in-house interface and gains the Android apps only through its compatibility layer. Against Ubuntu Touch, the split is the interface stack: Sailfish builds on Qt and X11, the Maemo inheritance, while Ubuntu Touch builds on Ubuntu and the MIR compositor, the desktop inheritance. Against postmarketOS, the split is scope: postmarketOS is a distribution that runs on many phones but ships no application store and no commercial support, while Sailfish is a product with a store, a vendor and a support policy. The choice between them comes down to what a person will not give up: if it is the Android app catalog, GrapheneOS; if it is a familiar desktop family, Ubuntu Touch; if it is maximum device coverage, postmarketOS; if it is a finished system with one vendor behind it, Sailfish.
Two last points belong to this lineage and nowhere else. First, banking and payment apps on Sailfish phones run as native or Android apps, and whether a specific bank's app is present depends on the app's own hardware requirements, so the honest check is to test the app on the exact phone, not to trust a list. Second, this page is an independent reference about the platform and its lineage; it is not Jolla, not Nokia, and not the original Maemo Freak blog, and it hosts no firmware, no ROMs and no repackaged applications. The official image lives on Jolla's own site, and the community builds live with their maintainers.