When comparing FairEmail vs F-Droid, the Slant community recommends F-Droid for most people. In the question“What are the best Android apps?” F-Droid is ranked 1st while FairEmail is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose F-Droid is:
Free and open source applications that are not for profit
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Open source
Pro Multiple account support
Multiple identities per account, notifications per account or contact.
Pro Actively maintained
It is actively maintained. The used libraries are up to date and bugs are fixed quickly.
Pro Privacy-Focused
There are no trackers within the app and trackers sent with mails are disabled by default. This app lets you read and compose emails with your privacy in your very own hands.
Pro Fast and customizable
Privacy features are excellent.
Pro Lightweight
~ 20 MB.
Pro Identities support
Pro Two way synchronization
Pro Flat conversation threading
Pro Encryption support
Supports both OpenPGP and S/MIME encryption for total privacy.
Pro Support for safety and low-bandwidth
Allows to configure maximum size of email downloaded immediately.
Pro Can show plain text of html mails
Pro Show links before opening
Some HTML mails may show different links and link texts, this app however will show you the real link before opening, protecting against phishing and scams
Pro Recognize spoofing internationalized domain names
Some domain names may use non-ASCII characters looking similar to the latin alphabet (e.g. some cyrillic characters). This app will show you the punycode representation of the domain, if that is the case and thus protect you against phishing and scams.
Pro Reformat the HTML mail for increased privacy
Some HTML mails may include ressources that can track you. This app doesn't load them by default, but reformats the text, increasing both privacy and readability.
Pro Autoconfiguration with open standards
There are open standards for any email provider to show how an email client should connect to the server. This app supports both RFC 6186 as well as Thunderbird Autoconfiguration standards.
Pro OAuth support for most common mail providers
Supports authenticating with the mail server using OAuth, thus increasing security.
Pro Low RAM usage at the right setings
Pro Non-profit
Free and open source applications that are not for profit
Pro All titles are free and open source
All apps and games on F-Droid are open source (FOSS), making for a complete store resource for users who want to use only open source software on their device.
Pro All apps have no ads nor tracking
This alone can be a great reason to use the apps available on F-Droid, but there is also the fact that this can increase battery life due to tracking and ads never requiring a data connection, since they are not present.
Pro Multiple repository sources
You have more than one source of apps and updates and local repository too
Pro Highlights 'anti features'
Features that are often considered undesirable by users and the open source community are highlighted. This could be advertising or connecting to non-free services
Pro Previous versions of apps remain available after updates
If you don't like to an app after an update, you can download the previous version again. This is not possible on GooglePlay.
Pro File sizes are shown
For those running out of room, the size of the APK is always shown.
Pro F-Droid compiles all packages
F-Droid compiles all the packages themselves ensuring a high level of security. Other stores just allow the developer to upload the app already compiled, meaning anything malicious could be in the app.
Cons
Con No Microsoft exchange server support
Con UI might be a bit confusing for some
Con No ratings/comments/number of downloads
All apps are presented equally. It is difficult to judge an app's quality/popularity before trying it. On the upside, descriptions are fair (written by the F-Droid maintainers, not by the app authors).
Con Not all apps have screenshots
It can be difficult to tell what an app is like without installing it.
Con Small selection
F-Droid has a small selection of apps when compared to other major Android markets. This is due to every app being open source and given away for free, something not many people are willing to do with their time and creations.
Con It doesn't have all the open source apps
There are many open source apps that aren't available on F-Droid due to their authors not making it available on that particular app store. One example is Omni Noted, which is on the Play Store but not F-Droid.
Con Descriptions are only available in English
Though the store app is multilingual, the app descriptions are only in English, meaning you must know English to find an app, even if the app is supposed to be multilingual.
Con A lot of apps lack polish
Since every app on F-Droid is FOSS and released for free, many of them aren't as polished compared to other markets and their paid app selections.
Con F-Droid bans Gab for being a “free speech zone” that will “tolerate all opinions”
F-Droid is just another liberal marxist echo chamber. It silences, bans, any opinion that deviates from their "progressive" marxist narrative.
Con It's not a good alternative for Google Play
Most useful softwares are not available on this platform so we can't call it an adequate alternative.
Con Updates are not automatic for non root users
You have to click the updates one-by-one in order to make them happen. If user has rooted their device automatic updates are possible, the app needs to be converted to a system app.
Con Most applications are outdated/deprecated
Most applications (80% of them) haven't been updated for more than 4 years.