Swiftkey Keyboard vs TouchPal Keyboard would turn out an endless debate if such  discussion is put before good Android users. Both Swiftkey and TouchPal for Android have been available for years now. The first Android phone, a ZTE phone I got back in 2013 had TouchPal pre-installed. A new Android user I was, I didn’t care much about which type of keyboard was on board. In fact, I had no idea the default keyboard was TouchPal. Perhaps many Android users don’t care about the keyboard installed either. But as one who types a lot on phone, eventually you become picky about which keyboard to use on phone especially one that provides better functionality.
Swiftkey Keyboard received a lot of praise for better word prediction and no doubt I concurred first time a colleague recommended it back then when TouchPal was my main keyboard. TouchPal Keyboard couldn’t offer better prediction. TouchPal however provided some unique things back then. It provided navigation arrow keys in the perfect placement and later on a clipboard built in the keyboard itself. It probably was the first keyboard to provide a clipboard, a very needed feature that many keyboards today including Swiftkey have adopted.
With features like clipboard available in TouchPal 2014, It was a very hard thing for a longtime TouchPal Keyboard user to switch to a Keyboard just for better word prediction and loose all the impressive functionality TouchPal provided.
I gave Swiftkey Keyboard a try but often went back to TouchPal Keyboard. Swiftkey later picked a few TouchPal features like the arrow keys and a clipboard. Definitely a move to win TouchPal users over. The fact of the matter is Swiftkey has had tons of users. It’s many users could also be attributed to the fact that Swiftkey went cross-platform earlier. It was welcomed to Windows Phone with open arms many users made it default keyboard instantly. Not far long ago Apple allowed usage of third-party apps to replace a few stock apps. Swiftkey was the first keyboard that received praise during that move.
TouchPal keyboard lost more users to keyboards like Swiftkey when it introduced ads in its free app. Nasty ads showed almost everywhere from lock screen to notification panel to those very annoying ones that often pop-up on screen, all in a bid for users to get the Premium version. Swiftkey remained free without ads.
Two months ago I challenged myself to use Swiftkey for the longest time until for some reason two days ago I decided to try the TouchPal I had given up on. Surprisingly, I find TouchPal word prediction better than what my Swiftkey offered even after creating an account with it the first time of usage to save common words I use. Must be improvement to TouchPal over time with each update. Back to the edit tools: Copy, Cut, Paste, Select, All, Home, End and arrow keys conveniently placed where they’ve always been.
Swiftkey’s implementation of arrows keys even though much welcomed couldn’t be much  conveniently located where TouchPal arrows keys are. At the bottom isn’t the best place especially if you have navigation buttons right below them. The same anyone would say about the clipboard. TouchPal’s clipboard offers more functionality and features compared to what Swiftkey does.
Both keyboards provide themes but a bonus to TouchPal for the ability to theme a keyboard with any color using it’s theme customization tool with addition of the ability to add a custom image as background. They all support swyping for quick text input. TouchPal provides emojis (or emoji prediction) that match the predicted word something Swiftkey doesn’t for the few months I used it.
Yes, the free TouchPal has got nasty ads and a bunch of useless features but these can be turned off. I personally don’t get pop-up ads from free TouchPal because I deny it internet access using my firewall app.
Final words:
If are the kind of person who often writes long pieces of text or even articles, try TouchPal and I guarantee you the convenience it delivers is unmatched. People who don’t do a lot of typing will often settle for any keyboard in which case, Swiftkey would probably be the most recommended because it’s completely free, has many features and ad-free. To a person like me who is often criticized for writing long blocks of text and transferring text content from one source to another, TouchPal offers the convenience I need to regard it a better keyboard than Swiftkey.
