#17 in Hosting & ComputeUpdated 2026-08

Anbox

by Anbox · Container-based Android system for GNU/Linux desktops

BenchRank score

51.4

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Overview

Anbox is a container-based approach to boot a full Android system on a regular GNU/Linux system. The main implementation is C++ under GPL-3.0, with the required kernel modules published in a separate repository. Created in 2017, its maintainers state development has stalled and it is no longer actively developed, pointing users to Waydroid or Anbox Cloud instead.

Best for: Linux desktop users wanting Android in a container, if unmaintained software is acceptable
Pricing: No pricing is shown for Anbox; the source is published on GitHub under GPL-3.0, and the captured pricing page is GitHub's own plans rather than Anbox's.

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

Boots a full Android system on a regular GNU/Linux system
Source is public on GitHub under GPL-3.0
Kernel modules published as a separate open repository

Trade-offs

No longer actively developed; development stalled before 2023
GitHub organisation archived Feb 2024, with no maintenance going forward
Needs out-of-tree kernel modules on the host
GNU/Linux desktop only; running Android in the cloud needs Anbox Cloud

Pricing

Published plans and prices from Anbox’s own pricing page.

How this score is made up

Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.

MCP support
Whether an agent can drive the product through the Model Context Protocol, and how much setup that takes.
API quality
Public API surface: machine-readable spec, official SDKs, documented auth, errors, rate limits and versioning.
Documentation
Publicly reachable docs — coverage, freshness, code samples and machine readability.
Agent friendliness
How readable the site is to an automated client: llms.txt, structured data, server-rendered content, crawler access.
Pricing transparency
Whether real prices are published, self-serve signup exists, and usage costs are knowable without a sales call.
Changelog
A public, dated record of what shipped and when — the clearest signal that a product is still alive.
Marketing site structure
Whether the site answers a buyer's questions: clear positioning, the pages that matter, and accessibility.
Page speed
How fast the site loads for real visitors: Chrome UX Report 75th-percentile LCP, INP and CLS, with a Lighthouse mobile run standing in where a site has too little traffic for field data.
Operational trust
Status page and incident history, security disclosure, compliance and data-processing documentation.

Measured, but not part of the score

Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.

Openness
Source availability, self-hosting, data export and open standards. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — paid SaaS is not worse for being paid SaaS.
Maintenance
Release cadence and repository activity. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — it is only measurable for open repositories.

This doesn’t look right — report a problem with Anbox’s score

Where this comes from

The Anbox pages BenchRank reads when it scores the product — its documentation, release notes, status and security pages, and its repository where there is one.

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