Sailfish OS is an operating system for mobile phones developed by Jolla. It is Linux-based with AppSupport, a proprietary compatibility layer for Android and custom user interface by Jolla.
The OS first shipped with the original Jolla Phone in 2013; while its sale stopped in 2016, it was supplied with software updates until the end of 2020. It also shipped with Jolla Tablet in 2015 and from other vendors licensing the OS. The OS is ported by community enthusiasts to third-party mobile devices including smartphones and tablet computers. Sailfish OS is mostly used for mobile phones and tablets.
History and development
The OS is an evolved continuation of the Linux MeeGo OS previously developed by Nokia and Intel which itself relies on combined Maemo and Moblin. This base is extended by Jolla with a custom user interface and default applications.
The User Interface is highly based on gestures and pulley menus.
Software architecture The and the Sailfish software development kit (SDK) are based on the Linux kernel and a standard Linux stack. includes a multi-tasking graphical shell called "Lipstick" built with Qt by Jolla on top of the Wayland display server protocol.
It uses standard Linux middleware like Systemd, Pulseaudio and Qt. Glibc is the included C Library. The first Jolla Phone in 2013 used Btrfs for the filesystem, afterwards Ext4 has been used. RPM is used as a package manager with PackageKit and Zypper for dependency resolving.
For connectivity ConnMan is used to manage network connections. wpa_supplicant is used for wifi while Bluez is used for Bluetooth. oFono is used for telephone calls with VoLTE available only for the Sony Xperia 10 II and III and Jolla Phone (2026).
Positioning is provided for with GPS and geoclue/beaconDB.
For command-line access, Dash from BusyBox is installed by default, while Bash is also available. For remote access, SSH can be enabled in the settings, while root access is also possible.
For development, there is GCC, LLVM, Autotools, Make and Meson. Included languages are Python, Ruby, Perl and Rust. For Game development, SDL is available. The default IDE is Qt Creator.
Jolla uses free and open-source graphics device drivers while the Hybris library allows use of proprietary drivers for Android.
Theming is done with Ambiences, which support images, colors and optionally ringtones. The Gallery app can create an Ambience from a single image.
Some key components of Sailfish OS have been licensed proprietary by Jolla from the start and ever since (as of Sailfish OS 5.0 in February 2025). Since September 2025 some closed parts of Sailfish OS have been open sourced, with the announcement that more parts are to be followed.
Firejail (Sailjail) is used for security sandboxing of native applications since version 4.0.1 in 2021.
can run some Android applications through a proprietary compatibility layer. It is running in an LXC container since Sailfish OS 3.0.1 from January 2019. Passthrough support for audio and bluetooth (since Sailfish 5.1 from 2026) is available.
Targeted device classes Sailfish is targeted at mobile devices. Sailfish can be used as a complete general-purpose Linux OS on devices including in vehicle infotainment (IVI), navigation, smart TV, desktops and notebooks, yachts, automotive, e-commerce, home appliances, measuring and control equipment, smart building equipment, etc. See the Devices section for devices that run the .
Sailfish OS SDK The SDK was announced at the Slush Helsinki conference in 2012, and the alpha was published in February 2013. The SDK, installation and coding tutorials are available for free download from the Documentation website despite the overall license not being open source.
Sailfish SDK uses Qt with the Qt Creator IDE for development. It uses Virtualbox for the build engine, while there is also emulation available. It's available for Linux, MacOS and Windows hosts (all 64bit). Docker can be used instead of Virtualbox, but is only available for a Linux host.
Targets for building are ARM in 64bit (aarch64) and 32bit (armv7hl) and Intel in 32bit (i486).
For hardware development there is a Platform SDK and a Hardware Adaptation Development Kit.
Application programming interfaces uses open source Qt APIs (Qt 5, QtQuick 2 etc.) and a proprietary Sailfish Silica for the UI. Standard Linux APIs are provided.
Sailfish Browser is the default web browser based on Gecko and using embedlite, a lite-weight embedding API from Mozilla. It's available under the MPL-2.0 license.
Software overview
UI supported human languages Officially Jolla declares supporting the following 14 languages for the user interface: Danish, German, English (UK), Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish, Russian, Chinese (mainland), and Chinese (Hong Kong). For each of them, the OS has a dedicated keyboard. There are a few more languages which are unofficially supported by community freelancers not under control by Jolla, hence more than 20 languages are supported in total. Additional languages can be installed by skilled users due to the Linux architecture.
Public "Early access" for beta testers and developers After positive experiences with pushing early updates to a small group of opt-in users for Sailfish Update 9 and for the connectivity hotfix, Jolla has allowed all interested parties to try a new version of about 1–2 weeks before official release, in a program called "Early access". It is expected to be useful for developers and technically minded users, and a step towards more community integration into the Sailfish release process, including improvement of quality by identifying critical issues which only show up in certain environments or device setups, before rolling the update out to the wider user audience. As an added bonus, it provides a window for developers to test their applications on new releases of .
Basic details about the early access update:
The early release access is meant primarily for advanced users and developers. To sign up for the program there is a checkbox in the Jolla accounts profile page. Installed early-access release cannot be downgraded. The only way to downgrade from early access releases is to do a factory reset after removing the sign up check from the user's account profile. Early access releases should be considered "reasonably stable". Issues found during that period will either be fixed, or added to "known issues" on the release notes. Signing up for the early access releases will not void warranty.
Version history has three naming conventions: version number, update number and version name. Sailfish OS 1.0 versions were named after Finnish lakes. Sailfish OS 2.0 supports the Jolla Tablet with x86 platforms and featured a reworked touch based UI. Releases were named after Finnish rivers. Sailfish OS 3.0 and 4.0 features a slightly reworked UI. Releases are named after Finnish national parks. Sailfish OS 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 features 64 bit support on the Sony Xperia 10 II, plus a new sharing system. Releases are named after Finnish Unesco world heritage sites.
Software version Initial release date Name v0.99.5 13 November 2013 Haaganlampi (only for subscribed developers) v0.99.6 11 November 2013 Idörpottarna (only for subscribed developers) v1.0.0 16 November 2013 Kaajanlampi (initial public release) v1.0.1 2 December 2013 Laadunjärvi ("Update 1") v1.0.2 27 December 2013 Maadajärvi ("Update 2") v1.0.3 27 January 2014 Naamankajärvi ("Update 3") v1.0.4 11 March 2014 Ohijärvi ("Update 4") v1.0.5 7 April 2014 Paarlampi ("Update 5") v1.0.6 Not released Raatejärvi ("Update 6"), was merged into v1.0.7 v1.0.7 3 June 2014 Saapunki ("Update 7") v1.0.8 3 July 2014 Tahkalampi ("Update 8") v1.1.0 16 September 2014 Uitukka ("Update 9"), was labelled as "opt-in upgrade" v1.1.1 14 December 2014 Vaarainjärvi ("Update 10") v1.1.2 1 February 2015 Yliaavanlampi ("Update 11") v1.1.3 Not released Åkanttrasket ("Update 12"), was merged into v1.1.4 v1.1.4 24 March 2015 Äijänpäivänjärvi ("Update 13") v1.1.5 Not released Österviken ("Update 14"), was dropped at release candidate stage v1.1.6 27 May 2015 Aaslakkajärvi ("Update 15") v1.1.7 24 June 2015 Björnträsket ("Update 16") v1.1.9 18 August 2015 Eineheminlampi ("Update 17") v2.0.0 19 October 2015 Saimaa ("Update 18") v2.0.1 12 January 2016 Taalojärvi ("Update 19") v2.0.2 13 May 2016 Aurajoki ("Update 20") v2.0.3 6 July 2016 Espoonjoki ("Update 21"), OS version solely for the Turing Phone v2.0.4 4 November 2016 Fiskarsinjoki ("Update 22") v2.0.5 14 December 2016 Haapajoki ("Update 23") v2.1.0 3 February 2017 Iijoki ("Update 24") v2.1.1 15 May 2017 Jämsänjoki v2.1.2 20 September 2017 Kiiminkijoki v2.1.3 6 October 2017 Kymijoki v2.1.4 12 February 2018 Lapuanjoki v2.2.0 30 May 2018 Mouhijoki v2.2.1 31 August 2018 Nurmonjoki v3.0.0 29 October 2018 Lemmenjoki v3.0.1 2 January 2019 Sipoonkorpi v3.0.2 13 March 2019 Oulanka v3.0.3 23 April 2019 Hossa v3.1.0 15 July 2019 Seitseminen v3.2.0 24 October 2019 Torronsuo v3.2.1 5 December 2019 Nuuksio v3.3.0 1 April 2020 Rokua v3.4.0 22 September 2020 Pallas-Yllästunturi (the final release for the Jolla Phone)Last version to support the original Jolla Phone sailfishos.org release notes for version 4.0.1 on 2021-04-21: Support for the Jolla 1 phone ended with version 3.4.0 v4.0.1 3 February 2021 Koli v4.1.0 10 May 2021 Kvarken v4.2.0 25 August 2021 Verla v4.3.0 28 October 2021 Suomenlinna v4.4.0 15 March 2022 Vanha Raumav4.5.02 February 2023Struven Ketjuv4.6.020 May 2024Saunav5.0.024 February 2025Tampellav5.1.016 June 2026Pispalav5.2.020 July 2026Finlayson
Stop releases When updating an installed Sailfish OS from an earlier release, for example after a device factory reset, there are several stop releases which must not be skipped and have to be installed before continuing on the path to subsequent releases. These releases provide new functionality that is not compatible with previous releases and have to be traversed in order not to put the Sailfish OS installation into an unstable state. Software version Release date Name v1.0.2.5 27 December 2013 Maadajärvi v1.1.2.16 25 February 2015 Yliaavanlampi v1.1.7.28 31 August 2015 Björnträsket v1.1.9.30 22 October 2015 Eineheminlampi v2.0.0.10 3 November 2015 Saimaa v2.0.5.6 22 November 2016 Haapajoki (only a stop release for some devices, e.g., the Jolla C / Intex Aquafish) v2.2.0.29 7 June 2018 Mouhijoki v3.0.0.8 11 November 2018 Lemmenjoki v3.2.0.12 5 November 2019 Torronsuo v3.4.0.24 13 October 2020 Pallas-Yllästunturi v4.0.1.48 16 February 2021 Koli v4.1.0.24 27 May 2021 Kvarken v4.2.0.21 16 September 2021 Verla v4.3.0.15 16 February 2022 Suomenlinna v4.4.0.72 30 September 2022 Vanha Rauma v4.5.0.25 29 February 2024 Struven ketju v4.6.0.15 20 September 2024 Sauna (the final release for Jolla Tablet, Jolla C, Xperia X, and Gemini PDA) v5.0.0.71 30 October 2025 Tampella
App Stores Jolla maintains an App Store at harbour.jolla.com. On a Sailfish device, there is an app for the Jolla Store for installing and updating packages. There is no web interface.
In addition, there is OpenRepos. This is an App Store maintained by the community that already existed at the time of Linux tablets and phones at Nokia. Besides a web interface, there is also the on-device app Storeman, with which apps can be installed and updated. Apps are uploaded as binary rpms, though source code is often available on a source repository.
Since 2021 there is also Chum. It builds packages from source with the help of an OBS. For on-device installs and updates, there is the app Chum Gui.
Using Android software running on