Comparison

Type Nine vs KeyboardKit

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Type Nine

This keyboard app offers a unique swiping experience on a keypad layout for faster typing. It supports multiple languages simultaneously, learns your vocabulary, and includes advanced features like precise deletion and cursor control.

Highlights
  • Swiping on keypad layout
  • Automatic multi-language detection
  • Word learning and prediction
  • Advanced backspace and cursor control
  • Customizable themes
  • Emoji access
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Type Nine brings classic T9-style typing to your iPhone with a retro phone keyboard built for fast, private, one-handed texting. Remember when texting felt simple? Type Nine reimagines the old-school phone keypad for modern iPhone users — combining the familiar 3x4 T9 keyboard layout with smart predictions, swipe gestures, personalization, themes, and privacy-first design. Whether you miss classic phone texting, want a simpler iPhone keyboard, prefer one-handed typing, or just want something different from the standard touchscreen keyboard, Type Nine gives you a clean, fast, nostalgic way to type. WHY PEOPLE LOVE TYPE NINE • Classic T9-style keyboard layout Type with a familiar phone keypad inspired by the keyboards many of us grew up with. • Fast one-handed typing The compact keypad layout makes it easy to text with one hand, whether you are walking, commuting, holding coffee, or multitasking. • Smart word predictions Type Nine suggests words as you type, helping you write faster with fewer taps. • Automatic language detection Type Nine can suggest words from multiple languages at the same time, so you do not need to constantly switch keyboards while typing. • Swipe typing with a keypad Type Nine combines a classic keypad layout with swipe-style movement for a modern typing experience. • Personal word learning When you manually type a word that is not in the dictionary, Type Nine can remember it and adapt to the words you use most. • Private by design Type Nine does not collect your personal data. Your typing stays yours. • VoiceOver support Type Nine was built with accessibility in mind and can be a helpful alternative keyboard for VoiceOver users. • Custom themes and colors Personalize your keyboard with different visual styles and make your iPhone feel more like your own. • Emojis, cursor movement, deletion, and more Type Nine includes the everyday keyboard tools you expect, rebuilt around a simple keypad experience. A RETRO KEYBOARD FOR MODERN TEXTING Type Nine is more than a nostalgia app. It is a practical alternative iPhone keyboard for people who want a faster, simpler, more personal way to text. Use Type Nine for: • Text messages • iMessage • WhatsApp • Telegram • Notes • Email • Social apps • Everyday typing across your iPhone OLD-SCHOOL FEEL. NEW-SCHOOL EASE. Type Nine gives you the feeling of classic phone texting with the flexibility of a modern iPhone keyboard. It is ideal for people who: • Miss old phone keyboards • Want a retro keyboard for iPhone • Prefer T9-style typing • Like one-handed texting • Want a simpler keyboard layout • Care about privacy • Want a keyboard that feels different • Use multiple languages • Want customizable themes • Prefer a keypad over a full QWERTY layout TEXT LIKE IT’S FUN AGAIN Typing on a phone used to feel simple, fast, and satisfying. Type Nine brings that feeling back — with a modern keyboard experience designed for today’s iPhone. Download Type Nine and bring back the classic T9 keyboard experience. BASIC IS BACK

About

KeyboardKit

Replace your device's default keyboard with a highly customizable alternative. Personalize typing with custom fonts, toolbars, emoji skin tones, and clipboards. Supports a vast array of languages and layout options for a truly unique typing experience.

Highlights
  • Customizable keyboard themes
  • Type with custom fonts
  • Extra toolbar row and buttons
  • Customizable emoji skin tone
  • Clipboard manager for quick pasting
  • Support for 75 languages
  • Multiple keyboard layouts
Features
Read full description

KeyboardKit lets you replace the system keyboard with a custom keyboard that is truly yours. KeyboardKit: - Works with all apps - Supports 110+ languages - Has many settings and themes KeyboardKit supports: - 110+ languages - QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY - Colemak, Dvorak - Korean Hangul - Thai 4-row and 5-row - Vietnamese TELEX, VIQR, VNI KeyboardKit lets you: - Apply more settings - Type with custom fonts - Add an extra row of buttons - Add buttons to the main toolbar - Add buttons next to the spacebar - Paste into any app from a list of clips - Style your keyboard with beautiful themes - Make your keyboard keys bigger and bolder Supported Languages: English (en), Afrikaans (af), Albanian (sq), Apache, Western (apw), Arabic (ar), Arabic (PC) (ar_PC), Armenian (hy), Azerbaijani (az), Basque (France) (eu_FR), Basque (Spain) (eu_ES), Belarusian (be), Bangla (bn), Blackfoot (bla), Bosnian (bs), Bulgarian (bg), Catalan (ca), Cherokee (chr), Chickasaw (cic), Chochenyo (cst), Choctaw (cho), Chuvash (cv), Comanche (com), Croatian (hr), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), Dutch (Belgium) (nl_BE), English (Australia) (en_AU), English (Canada) (en_CA), English (United Kingdom) (en_GB), English (South Africa) (en_ZA), English (United States) (en_US), Esperanto (eo), Estonian (et), Faroese (fo), Filipino (fil), Finnish (fi), French (fr), French (Canada) (fr_CA), French (Belgium) (fr_BE), French (Switzerland) (fr_CH), Galician (Spain) (gl_ES), Georgian (ka), German (de), German (Austria) (de_AT), German (Switzerland) (de_CH), Greek (el), Hawaiian (haw), Hebrew (Israel) (he_IL), Hungarian (hu), Icelandic (is), Inari Sami (smn), Indonesian (id), Irish (Ireland) (ga_IE), Italian (it), Kalaallisut (kl), Kazakh (kk), Khmer (km), Kildin Sámi (sjd), Kiowa (kio), Korean (ko), Kurdish, Sorani (ckb), Kurdish, Sorani (Iraq) (ckb_IQ), Kurdish, Sorani (PC) (ckb_PC), Kyrgyz (ky), Latvian (lv), Lithuanian (lt), Lule Sami (smj), Lushootseed (lut), Luxembourgish (lb), Macedonian (mk), Malay (ms), Maltese (mt), Māori (mi), Mongolian (mn), Mvskoke (mus), Navajo (nv), Nez Perce (nez), North Sámi (se), Norwegian Bokmål (nb), Norwegian Nynorsk (nn), Osage (osa), Persian (fa), Pite Sámi (sje), Polish (pl), Portuguese (Portugal) (pt_PT), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt_BR), Romanian (ro), Romansh (rm), Russian (ru), Salish (fla), Samoan (sm), Serbian (sr), Serbian (Latin) (sr-Latn), Tajik (tg), Skolt Sami (sms), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), South Sámi (sma), Spanish (es), Spanish (Latin America) (es_419), Spanish (Mexico) (es_MX), Swedish (sv), Swahili (sw), Thai (th), Turkish (tr), Turkmen (tk), Ukrainian (uk), Ume Sámi (sju), Uzbek (uz), Vietnamese (vi), Welsh (cy), Wixárika (hch), Xhosa (xh), Yiddish (yi), Yoruba (yo), Zulu (zu) Available Settings: - Keyboard:  Text Replacements, Keyboard Placement, Character Preview, Haptic Feedback, Sound, Auto-Capitalization, Auto-Collapse, Enable Caps Lock, Predictive Text, "." Shortcut,  Spacebar Long Press Behavior, Spacebar Leading & Trailing Menu,  Toolbar Menu, Input Toolbar, Custom Spacebar & Toolbar Actions - Autocomplete: Auto-Complete, Auto-Correction, Auto-Ignore Words, Emoji Suggestions, Lexicon Suggestions, Next Character Prediction, Text Replacements, Ignored Words, Number of Suggestions, Hide toolbar, Next Word Prediction with Claude and Open AI, - Clipboard: Add Clipboard Content, Create Custom Clips - Dictation: Silence Limit (before dictation ends) - Emoji:  Emoji Keyboard, Emoji Autocomplete, Default Emoji Skin Tone - Feedback: Haptic Feedback Sound - Fonts:  Select Custom Font - Theme:  Pick Theme, Create Custom Themes (Premium) - Accessibility: Bold Text, Custom Button Height We hope that you will love using KeyboardKit! Terms & Conditions: https://apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Type Nine4 screens
KeyboardKit4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: KeyboardKit at Free against Type Nine's $3.99. KeyboardKit also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 2 months). Type Nine's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and review sentiment (73% vs 52%). On rating, ratings volume, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

KeyboardKit is free to download; Type Nine costs $3.99 up front. KeyboardKit sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Type Nine asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.3 for Type Nine against 4.4 for KeyboardKit. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 195 and 83 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 73% of Type Nine's written reviews are positive against 52% of KeyboardKit's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Type Nine ships an update every 2 months, KeyboardKit fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 27, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Type Nine versus KeyboardKit: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterType NineKeyboardKit
Price$3.99Free — better
Rating4.3 (195 ratings)4.4 (83 ratings) — better
Positive reviews72.9% of reviews — better52.0% of reviews
Number of ratings195 — better83
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#112 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS14.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size38 MB78 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperRasmus PorsagerKankoda Sweden AB

Customer experience

Type Nine

All ratings194 ratings
Positive85.1%
Neutral4.6%
Negative10.3%
Written reviews539 reviews
Positive72.9%
Neutral9.3%
Negative17.8%

KeyboardKit

All ratings83 ratings
Positive80.7%
Neutral10.8%
Negative8.4%
Written reviews25 reviews
Positive52.0%
Neutral36.0%
Negative12.0%

Bugs and requests

Type Nine

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Keyboard not showing up in some apps
  • Inconsistent performance on different iOS versions
  • Issues with manual letter entry and number input

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more keyboard theme options
  • Improve cursor control and text selection
  • Integrate with more messaging apps
  • Add auto-correct and spell-check features
  • Allow customization of keyboard layout

KeyboardKit

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Type Nine

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

KeyboardKit

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Subscription7 Days trial$1.991 Month
  • Yearly Subscription7 Days trial$19.991 Year

Questions

Is Type Nine free?
Type Nine costs $3.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is KeyboardKit free?
KeyboardKit is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Type Nine or KeyboardKit?
KeyboardKit is rated higher. Type Nine averages 4.3 out of 5 from 195 ratings, while KeyboardKit averages 4.4 from 83 ratings.
Do Type Nine or KeyboardKit have ads?
Neither Type Nine nor KeyboardKit shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Type Nine or KeyboardKit?
Type Nine ships an update every 2 months, and KeyboardKit fortnightly. Most recently, Type Nine was updated on October 26, 2026 and KeyboardKit on October 27, 2026.

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