The Wikipedia Android app is the official Android client for Wikipedia, a Kotlin codebase for readers who want the encyclopedia on Android devices and for developers who work on the official app.

What it is

This repository contains the source code for the official Wikipedia Android app, the mobile client listed on Google Play as org.wikipedia. The project belongs to the Wikipedia and MediaWiki ecosystem, and its codebase is primarily Kotlin with Java components, as reflected in the kotlin and java topics. It is licensed under Apache-2.0 and carries 3,024 stars, 848 forks, and 45 open issues at the time of this snapshot. Its topic list places it in the Android application space: android, android-app, kotlin, java, coroutines, viewmodel, mediawiki, mediawiki-api, rest-api, wiki, wikipedia, and wikipedia-android.

The concrete problem is access to Wikipedia on Android: the project provides the official dedicated client instead of sending users through a generic mobile browser or an unofficial reader. It connects to MediaWiki and Wikipedia through the MediaWiki API and REST API, so content and metadata come from the Wikimedia platform. Documentation is kept on the Wikimedia Apps wiki, and issue tracking runs through Phabricator rather than GitHub Issues. The repository is therefore the canonical source for the Android client, not a generic wiki engine or a self-hosted knowledge base.

Key capabilities

• Publishes the official Wikipedia Android app through Google Play under the package org.wikipedia, as linked from the README.
• Implements the client in Kotlin with Java interoperation, matching the kotlin and java topics.
• Uses the MediaWiki API and REST API for wiki content and metadata, matching the mediawiki-api and rest-api topics.
• Applies Kotlin coroutines for asynchronous work, matching the coroutines topic.
• Uses Android ViewModel for UI state, matching the viewmodel topic.
• Targets Android devices and the Wikipedia ecosystem, matching the android, android-app, wikipedia, and wikipedia-android topics.
• Keeps documentation on the MediaWiki App hacking wiki and routes bugs to the Phabricator wikipedia-android-app-backlog project.

Who uses it and how

• Android readers install the official app from Google Play as org.wikipedia to read Wikipedia on their phones.
• Developers modifying the client work from the Kotlin and Java source, and they must follow documentation on the MediaWiki wiki because the README provides no local build steps.
• Contributors and testers file issues in Phabricator using the linked form template that asks for steps to reproduce, expected results, actual results, stack trace, app version, Android OS version, device model, and device language.
• Teams in the MediaWiki ecosystem integrate against the same MediaWiki API and REST API surface that the app consumes.
• The project shows community scale through 3,024 stars and 848 forks, with 45 open issues in the tracker snapshot.

Getting started

Install the official app from Google Play under the package org.wikipedia. For development, start at the MediaWiki App hacking page linked as the project homepage, since the README only points to that wiki and to the Phabricator bug tracker.

How it compares

The facts provide no list of paid products that this project replaces, and they name no similar tools in this registry. It stands alone in this registry as the official Wikipedia Android client.

When to use it — and when not to

Choose this project when the goal is the official Android client for Wikipedia or when working on that client's Kotlin codebase. Do not choose it if the goal is a self-hosted wiki engine, a web application, or an iOS client, because the facts describe only an Android app. A self-hoster has no server component to run here; the trade-off is a sparse README that delegates all setup details to an external wiki, plus 45 open issues and a last push on 2026-09-17.