Android is offered to users with pre-installed Google services on almost all devices, but Google Play services aren’t open source and therefore you can’t use pre-installed Google services on a custom ROM based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project). GApps is a third-party solution that allows you to use Google Play Services and Google Play Store on custom ROMs.
What is the GApps
GApps packages are a package that allows you to fully install the Custom ROM’ Google services that you’ve installed on your device. The emergence of GApps packages, which are used to install Google Play services, dates back to the first custom ROMs and dates back more than 10 years. OpenGApps, which is the most popular and preferred by many users today, isn’t the first of the GApps packages. OpenGApps came up in 2015 and the source code is available on GitHub. OpenGApps is constantly updated automatically via buildbots. It supports all versions from Android 4.4 to Android 11.
OpenGApps features
There are many answers to the question of what is the GApps. The most popular package, OpenGApps, has many highlights. OpenGApps supports all architectures and Android versions, you can even use it on a 10 year old smartphone. You won’t have size issues caused by the phone’s resolution when using Google apps, because it’s optimized for any DPI. Thanks to the built-in addon.d support, you can update the custom ROM without having to delete GApps. OpenGApps is updated regularly and has high compression.
Best OpenGApps Alternative
There are many alternative packages to OpenGApps, the first package that comes to mind when it comes to what is the GApps. However, many alternative GApps packages are not stable and can cause problems on your phone. The best GApps distro as an alternative to OpenGApps is FlameGApps. There is not much different from OpenGApps in terms of features, it even supports Android 12 and 12L!
FlameGApps only supports Android devices with arm64 architecture, it is compatible with all devices from Android 10 to Android 12.1. FlameGApps supports current Android devices compared to OpenGApps. Just like OpenGApps, it comes with high compression, is updated regularly and has addon.d support. If you are looking for a non-OpenGApps distribution, you can choose FlameGApps.
