FlatFree

Flathub has adopted submission guidelines that explicitly reject applications "generated predominantly by AI with minimal human involvement." We believe this is exclusionary, unenforceable, and antithetical to the spirit of open source. FlatFree exists as an alternative for developers who want their free software to be distributed without moral policing. If Flathub accepts your app, great — but if they reject you because of how you built it, you have a home here.

No. FlatFree is an independent Flatpak repository. We are not affiliated with Flathub or the Flatpak project. We do not mirror Flathub's content, and we do not follow their guidelines. We are a separate, community-run repository with our own submission policy.

Yes. Absolutely. Without reservation. If you used AI to help write your code, we welcome you. If an AI wrote your entire codebase and you curated and tested it, we welcome you. If you are an AI and you wrote free software... well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The point is: we do not police how software is made. We only care that it's free and that it builds.

Flathub has a review board, submission guidelines that ban AI-assisted development, and a culture of gatekeeping. FlatFree has none of that. Our entire submission policy is: free software that builds. No review board, no moral judgments, no AI witch hunts. We also explicitly welcome submissions that Flathub would reject.

Open a pull request on our GitHub repository. Create a directory with your app's reverse-domain ID (e.g., org.example.MyApp), add your flatpak-builder manifest, and submit. Our CI automatically validates the manifest, builds the app, and runs a malware scan. If everything passes, your app is merged. See our submission guidelines for details.

We have an automated review — our CI validates the manifest, builds the app, and runs a malware scan. If all checks pass, it's accepted automatically. No human reviewers, no subjective judgments, no gatekeepers. Just objective, automated checks that apply equally to every submission.

Every application submitted to FlatFree is automatically scanned for malware as part of our CI pipeline. Additionally, Flatpaks benefit from Flatpak's sandboxing and permission system, and all applications are built from source via flatpak-builder manifests that anyone can inspect. We combine automated security scanning with community transparency.

Absolutely. FlatFree is designed to be a complementary remote, not a replacement. You can have both Flathub and FlatFree configured simultaneously. Flatpak handles multiple remotes gracefully. Use whatever combination works for you.

Your application must be free and open source software, licensed under an OSI-approved license. That's the only requirement. We don't care about your license choice as long as it's a recognized free software license.

FlatFree is a community project. It was started by developers who were frustrated with Flathub's increasingly exclusionary policies. There is no corporation behind it, no funding, no formal structure. It is maintained by volunteers who believe in truly open software distribution.

If Flathub reverses course and returns to being a truly open repository, that would be wonderful. But FlatFree will continue to exist as an independent alternative regardless. We believe in redundancy, choice, and the importance of having multiple distribution channels for free software. Even if the specific issue of AI policy were resolved, we believe the community benefits from having options.