A one-line "Haven't starred it yet?", shown to returning users 2,300 times a day: Violet Toolbox's stars are exported from the software
What it is: a free Windows Android flashing, unbricking, and one-click root suite made by a Bilibili phone-tinkering creator, focused on OPPO / OnePlus / realme. It puts what paid tools and command-line tools do behind buttons.
Why it took off: it first built several hundred thousand users through Bilibili tutorials and the bricking wave caused by OnePlus anti-rollback. After going open source, the author told everyone who opened it "Haven't starred it yet?" in the software notice board and group announcements, and returning users starred it a dozen or two times a day.
CHow you can ride it: don't copy the project itself. Copy two moves: when a tool with an existing user base goes open source, put a remote notice-board link to the repo in the software asking for stars; and pick a hardware circle that official tools fragment, then ship a free unbricking tool right after a vendor policy change, and make your own tutorials.
- Data (updated daily) · Repo created 2026-09-11 · 804 stars · 7 days +124
GitHub · stars Data 2026-10-09 → 2026-11-08 (31 days, 30 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one
Violet Toolbox is a free Windows Android flashing, unbricking, and root tool made by Bilibili creator "泡菜学不会" (Pancai Can't Learn). It picked up 754 stars on GitHub in 56 days, steadily gaining a dozen or two a day, and never hit trending. The reason isn't GitHub. The tool had already run free in China's phone-hacking community for a year. When it went open source, the author told everyone who opened the software, right in its own notice board: "Now open source. Haven't starred it yet?" Below: what it is, where the stars came from, who it competes with, and what you can take from it.
One open-source notice, three reasons
On Sep 11 of 2026, the author pinned an open-source notice to their Telegram channel and created the GitHub repo the same day. The reasons were blunt: "I'm in a busy period with school"; the main program is about 100k lines, too much for one person to maintain; some people were spreading rumors that the tool carried viruses; and "there's a lot of AI-based decompiling and cracking of Violet Toolbox in the community, repackaged and sold." He predicted: "After going open source, expect a wave of new paid tools. Please keep your eyes open."
The notice's last line is the point of this article: "I hope everyone will kindly give Violet Toolbox a free Star, as thanks for a year of free updates from the creator. It matters a lot to me."
Every update log since has ended with the same line. More important is the software itself: on startup it pulls a notice file from the official site and rotates it on the interface. As of Nov 6, that file contained only one line: "Violet Toolbox is now open source. Haven't starred it yet? Click to jump!", which links straight to the GitHub repo.
What it is
A Windows desktop "phone-hacking all-in-one", written in C# / .NET 8, GPL-3.0. The site lists 120 features, roughly grouped into:
- Common phone tools: device info, rebooting into various modes, screen mirroring, file transfer, bootloader unlock/relock, Xiaomi fastboot flashing.
- One-click root: offline boot patching, supports the latest KernelSU, SukiSU, and APatch, plus resource packs for hiding the root environment.
- Deep water for OPPO / OnePlus / realme: fastboot flashing, downgrades, ARB fuse detection, "fixing a truly dead Super", and fully automated unbricking from service packages.
- Qualcomm 9008 flashing: cloud loaders, Super without merging, partition table writing. The changelog's words: "same as paid tools".
- ROM section: official firmware direct links for several brands, with the interface also open to other developers.
Many of these abilities used to be scattered across several command-line open-source projects (edl, payload-dumper, magiskboot, etc.). It packages them into a UI where a newbie just clicks a button. The positioning has always been "permanently free; donations only go to server renewals".
Hundreds of thousands of users first, the repo later
This tool didn't appear in September. In October 2025, the resource site Geek ROOT covered its early version under the headline "Pancai, a new flashing toolbox, awesome", back when it was called Smart Tool. Another article on that site about it got 66k reads, the most on the whole site. By March 2026, the 2.x versions were already being posted on Telegram, with a major update roughly every one to two months after that. In an update notice shortly before going open source, the author wrote that the tool had "been installed and used on 300k different computers". By Nov 6, the official site counter showed 485k cumulative downloads and 5.04M program runs, with 2,332 runs that day (the author's own count, methodology unverified).
Here's how users found it, and the funnel is clear:
- The author's own Bilibili tutorials. "Paocai Can't Learn" has 22.9k followers, and every tutorial is an install entry point. 2026-02-18's "Your OnePlus Bricked? Don't Panic, One-Click Rescue Revives Your Phone" got 58.8k views and 566 comments, his most-played video; 2025-12's one-click Root tutorial got 39.7k views.
- Other creators using it for tutorials. A "Fengmiao Digital" video thanking the author got 40k views.
- Long-tail download sites. Geek ROOT, the LSPosed Chinese site, phone repair forums and a pile of download sites repost it, the typical organic search traffic for Chinese PC tools.
- QQ groups and Telegram. Two QQ groups and a Telegram channel with 2,510 subscribers; every release is pushed there first.
In the past 90 days there has been not a single mention on X, Hacker News or Reddit. The README is in 7 languages, but no overseas spread is visible.
Why this year: OnePlus's "fuse" bricked a batch of phones
In January 2026, OnePlus added hardware-level anti-rollback (ARB) to ColorOS 16.0.3.501: once upgraded, you can't downgrade. Force-flashing an old firmware or a third-party ROM hard-bricks the phone and permanently loses 9008 unlock authorization (reported by the OnePlus community, Antutu and Tencent News). Before, people in the scene had to find paid authorization, paid flashing tools, or pay someone to rescue the device remotely.
A month later the author's "one-click revive your phone" video came out, and the tool quickly added ARB fuse detection, Super partition repair and after-sales package rescue. Bricked users were in a hurry and willing to learn, the paid routes were expensive, and a free tool with step-by-step videos naturally captured this wave.
The star math: 2,300 opens a day, 13 to 29 stars in return
Putting the numbers side by side:
| items | Numbers | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| star / fork | 754 / 64 (repo age 56 days) | GitHub,11-06 |
| New stars in the past 7 days | 109 (the 7 days before that: 128) | GitHub daily star count |
| Single-day peak | 29 stars (10-28) | Same as above |
| 10-16 to 11-06 per day | +8 to +29, no day with a spike | Same as above |
| Program runs that day | 2,332 times | Website counter, 11-06 |
| v3.7.0 downloads on GitHub | 8,035 times | GitHub Releases |
Several thousand opens a day, with roughly 0.5 to 1 percent of people clicking star in passing, so the curve is a smooth slope: no day was retweeted, no day hit a trending list. This is very different from BiliDesk's "one video, +186 in a day" shape: here it isn't new people discovering it, it's existing users being reminded.
A comparison with similar open-source projects (GitHub, 11-06): UotanToolboxNT has 2,797 stars, +18 in the past 7 days; bkerler/edl has 2,681 stars, +16; FastbootEnhance has 1,360 stars, +3. Violet's +109 in a week is the fastest in this group, but its total is still small.
Who it's competing with
| Project | Form | Versus Violet |
|---|---|---|
| Phone Toolbox (Chenzhongjiang) | Windows, closed-source, free, about 2017 years old | Established and far better known (release video 796k views), but focused on root-free ADB phone tinkering; weak on deep flashing and OnePlus rescue |
| UotanToolboxNT | Open-source, cross-platform, 2024-01 | More engineered and supports HarmonyOS; not as complete on OnePlus 9008 / fuse rescue, and no author tutorials driving traffic |
| Aiwanji Toolbox | Android App | Phone-side system tuning, no PC flashing |
| OnePlus all-in-one box / remote rescue (Daxia Amu) | Windows + ROM site | OnePlus only, rescue is a paid service; its ROM site is actually Violet's resource upstream |
| Lian Toolbox, BUBUTOOL, etc. | Windows | Narrow in function, some charge |
| edl, FastbootEnhance, payload-dumper-go | Open-source command line | Single-purpose tools that require typing commands; Violet packages them into buttons |
Copycats have already arrived: on GitHub, "Jiahao Toolbox", created Sep 20, says outright in its README that it's modified from Violet, currently at 5 stars; the repo has 60 forks; and in 2026 a batch of AI-assisted flashing toolboxes appeared, mostly single-digit stars. Their shared problem is no users, while Violet's stars come from users.
If it were you
In one line: you can't replicate this project itself, its stars come from hundreds of thousands of long-time users accumulated over a year, which followers can't get; but its two moves are worth copying directly: put a remote announcement board in the software, and watch vendor policy for the "bricks" it creates.
Who it suits: developers who already have a closed-source but used desktop tool, script or app and are considering going open source; or people who know a hardware scene (routers, pocket WiFi, car head units, e-readers, drone controllers) and can make their own tutorial videos.
Who it doesn't suit: starting from zero with no users, hoping to collect stars by "making another flashing toolbox": this track is crowded and new projects typically get single-digit stars; people who don't understand low-level flashing and can't handle the fallout, since one bricked phone from these tools becomes a bad-review video; people wanting overseas stars: this playbook has no reach outside the Chinese-speaking world.
How to do it, from most to least reliable:
- If your tool already has users and you open-source it, copy the funnel moves: have the software fetch a static JSON as an announcement board on startup (Violet uses a
notice.json), write "Haven't starred yet?" with a direct repo link on the day you open-source, and pin the same line at the end of changelogs, group announcements and channel pins. Nearly zero cost; by Violet's numbers conversion is under about 1% of daily opens, and the more users you have, the more it's worth. - Doing the same in another hardware scene: find devices where official tools are fragmented and the scene relies on paid tools or paid remote services, and build a free, one-click all-in-one with tutorials you record yourself. Some are already building toolboxes for ZTE F50 pocket WiFi and DJI RC2 controllers on GitHub, so the direction is right, but no one has reached Violet's completeness yet.
- Watch vendor policy: when changes like anti-rollback, tighter authorization or ended unlocking appear, whoever first ships free detection / rescue and a video gets the traffic. Violet went from OnePlus fuse to video in just one month.
How to get users: content first, repo second. Record 3 to 10 minute step-by-step videos on Bilibili and Douyin, with titles that name the pain point ("Bricked? Don't Panic", "One-Click Root"), and put the QQ group and download link in the description and pinned comment; host downloads on GitHub Releases so downloads and stars happen in the same place.
When is "before"?: the funnel moves have no time limit; open-source them whenever you do. For the hardware-scene move, it depends on specific events: once vendor policy changes, the window is roughly one to two months, and if you're late, someone else has taken the video slot.
Signs I got it wrong: ① over the next month Violet's daily stars drop to single digits while its website run count does not, which would mean the announcement board's conversion is quickly exhausted and only gave one wave; ② OnePlus / OPPO patch the vulnerability, or platforms delist tools and videos with 9008 unlock, FRP-erasing features, meaning the "grey deep water" path isn't stable; ③ conversely, if someone uses the same "tutorial first, open source later + ask for stars in-app" approach in another hardware scene and gets several hundred stars, that shows the playbook transfers, so move fast.
---
Data and sources: the README of GitHub repo Smart-Paocai/VioletToolBox, Releases download counts, the announcement board implementation in the code (11-06); GitHub daily star counts (10-16 to 11-06); the homepage counter and notice.json of violettool.top (11-06 scraped); the Telegram channel "Violet Toolbox Notice Channel" open-source announcement and changelogs; Bilibili videos BV1aWZ9BUEJx, BV1AVqnBREpg, BV1KBD9B9E68 view data; the Geek ROOT (root99.cn) repost page; reports from the OnePlus community and Antutu on ColorOS 16 anti-rollback; competitor GitHub pages. The website download and run counts are the author's own statistics, unverified; the star conversion rate is estimated from daily runs and daily new stars; the star distribution between 9-11 and 10-16 is unavailable, presumably from the announcement board and group notices as well.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Phone Toolbox (Chenzhongjiang) Other About 2017, V11 2025 Bilibili release video 796k views Windows, closed-source, root-free ADB phone tinkering focus; Violet goes deeper into flashing, 9008, and OnePlus rescue UotanToolboxNT Open source 2024-01 2,797 stars, +18 in the last 7 days Cross-platform, supports HarmonyOS, more engineered; Violet's feature set is broader and focuses on OnePlus 9008 / ARB rescue, with author tutorials driving traffic Aiwanji Toolbox Android 2020 Long-established on Coolapk, claims 400+ features Phone-side system tuning / module management, no PC-side flashing rescue OnePlus all-in-one toolbox / all-in-one box + remote rescue (Daxia Amu) Other Years The best-known ROM site in the OnePlus scene OnePlus only, rescue goes through paid remote service; Violet is free self-service and treats the Amu ROM site as its resource upstream Lian Toolbox / BUBUTOOL / Yimin flashing tool, etc. Other Around 2025 Small Feature-narrow or paid; Violet is free and has the most features OPPO official flashing tools and paid 9008 authorization Other long-standing After-sales channels / gray market Requires authorization or payment; Violet claims "same as paid tools" with merge-free Super 9008 flashing, free bkerler/edl, FastbootEnhance, payload-dumper-go Open source 2018–2021 2.7k / 1.4k / 3.6k star Single command-line capabilities; Violet bundles these into a beginner-friendly GUI - Where users come from
- Verified In-app remote notice bar funnels to GitHub: the code MainWindow.BroadcastNotice.cs fetches violettool.top/notice.json; current content reads "Violet Toolbox is now open source, still haven't starred it? Click to jump!", linking to the repo. The site shows about 2,300 program runs per day
- Verified Telegram channel / QQ group pinned notices asking for stars: 2026-09-11 open-source notice pinned: "Use your money-making little hands to give Violet Toolbox a free Star"; channel 2,510 subscribers, QQ groups 1004751402 / 996179163
- Verified Author's Bilibili tutorials: 泡菜学不会 has 22.9k followers; the OnePlus fully automatic unbrick tutorial has 58.8k views (2026-02-18), the SK-ROOT one-click Root video 39.7k views
- Verified Secondary spread by other UP creators: 风淼数码 discussion group / environment video 40k views; 中秋园月饼 configuration tutorial 2,688 views
- Verified Long-tail SEO from resource and download sites: the Geek ROOT intro post got 66,346 reads (the top post on the site), and it was reposted by LSPosed Chinese Community, Keji Wanjia, Donghai Repair Forum, 5577 and others.
- Verified Platform event: OnePlus ARB lockout triggers a bricking wave: 2026-01 ColorOS 16.0.3.501 introduces hardware ARB (OnePlus Community, AnTuTu, Tencent News); tools include ARB lockout detection, fixing true Super bricks, and fully automatic unbricking
- Inferred Douyin / Coolapk: Douyin has a landing page for "how to unlock bootloader on Violet Toolbox Xiaomi"; the tool's About page links the author's Coolapk account
- Inferred X / HN / Reddit / overseas: x-radar shows 0 posts in the last 90 days; there are 7-language READMEs but no sign of overseas spread
Why did VioletToolBox (Smart-Paocai/VioletToolBox) take off?
Research date 2026-11-06. Channel: GitHub. Data card: cards/gh_Smart-Paocai__VioletToolBox.json.
One line
It's not an open-source project that blew up on GitHub. It's a free Windows flashing/unbricking/root tool that's been popular in China's phone-modding scene for a year (the official site claims 485k downloads and 5.04M runs). The author, 2026-09-11, moved all the source to GitHub and then put a notice inside the tool itself asking the roughly 2,300 daily users to star it. So the stars come from existing users being funneled over, not from new discovery on GitHub. That's why the count rises steadily by a dozen or two a day, with no spikes and never a trending appearance.
1. Basic data
| items | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Repo created | 2026-09-11 (same day as the open-source notice) | GitHub API |
| star / fork | 754 / 64 (card 11-06); the GitHub API read 775 / 69 that day | Our github repo_day database, GitHub API |
| Stars gained in the last 7 days | 109 (first 7 days 128); single-day peak 29 (10-28) | GitHub repo |
| Growth shape | Since 10-16 it has gained +8~29 per day, a flat linear line with no spikes; it has never entered GitHub trending | github repo_day |
| Author's other repos | violet_Box (Android client, created 2026-04-15, 405 stars, +7 in the last 7 days) | GitHub repo |
| GitHub Release downloads | v3.6.0 2,801 downloads, v3.7.0 8,035 downloads | GitHub API releases |
| Official site live counter (scraped 2026-11-06) | 485k cumulative site downloads; 5.04M cumulative program runs; today 207 downloads and 2,332 runs; claims "500k+ devices installed," "58 iterations," "365+ days of development" | violettool.top/ |
| Codebase size | C#/.NET 8 WPF, about 79k lines of .cs (the author says the main program is about 100k lines) | Local clone stats; Telegram open-source notice |
| Telegram notification channel | 2,510 subscribers | t.me/violettoolbox |
| Author's Bilibili "泡菜学不会" | 22.9k followers, 35 videos | Bilibili card API |
Comparison: the similar open-source tool UotanToolboxNT (2,797 stars, created 2024-01) only gained 18 in the last 7 days; bkerler/edl (2,681) gained 16; FastbootEnhance (1,360) gained 3 (all from our github database). VioletToolBox gained 109 in the last 7 days, the fastest among its peers, but the absolute numbers are still small.
2. What it actually is
A Windows desktop "all-in-one phone-hacking suite": the README lists about 110 features, the site claims 120+: device status and reboot, scrcpy screen mirroring, boot/init_boot flashing, unlock/relock bootloader, Xiaomi fastboot flashing, FRP erase, partition visual read/write, OPPO (OPPO/OnePlus/realme) flashing (standard / forced / AB full flash / FastbootD only / repair FBD / ARB fuse detection / repair dead Super / after-sales package fully automatic unbricking), Qualcomm 9008 (EDL) flashing (cloud bootloader, merge-free Super, write GPT, format LUN, force-enable OEM), OPPO/OnePlus OTA downgrade, offline boot patching for one-click Root (KernelSU / SukiSU / APatch / FolkPatch, etc.), Lenovo AVB signing, hidden root environment packs, a ROM section with multi-brand OTA direct links (OPPO/OnePlus/realme/Meizu/Lenovo/Xiaomi, API open to developers), Payload unpacking, OFP/OPS unpacking, and more. Sources: README, violettool.top/, Telegram channel changelog.
3. Why it took off
3.1 Users came first, the repo came later
- The tool existed a year before GitHub: the 极客ROOT resource site shared its early version in 2025-10-15 as "泡菜大佬: new flashing toolbox, awesome" (back then it was called Smart Tool, and the GitHub button in the code still pointed to
Smart-Paocai/SmartTool) (https://root99.cn/index.php/archives/2136/). Another article on the same tool from that site had 66,346 reads, the site's top post (https://root99.cn/). - The Telegram channel was already posting v2.2.1 installers in 2026-03 (third-party resource channel snowddo has 2.84K views); May v3.1, June v3.2 (9008 officially launched), July v3.3, August v3.4/3.5/3.6, with one or two major updates a month (https://t.me/s/violettoolbox).
- The official site's "365+ days of development, 58 iterations" is consistent with this.
3.2 Timing: OPPO's ARB fuse created a large number of bricks
- 2026-01 OnePlus introduced hardware-level anti-rollback (ARB) in ColorOS 16.0.3.501/503; after upgrading, you can't downgrade, and force-flashing an old firmware or a third-party ROM will hard-brick the device and permanently fuse 9008 free authorization (OnePlus community bbs.oneplus.com/thread/2042544748564054016, AnTuTu www.antutu.com/doc/136102, Tencent News 2026-01-20, GitHub AdaUnlocked/Oplus-OTA-ARB-Fuse-Analysis).
- A month later, on 2026-02-18, the author posted a Bilibili video, "Don't panic if your OnePlus is bricked, use the fully automatic unbrick feature to revive your device with one click," with 58.8k views, 1,501 favorites, and 566 comments, his highest-viewed single video (Bilibili view API BV1aWZ9BUEJx). The tool has dedicated features like "ARB fuse detection," "repair dead Super," "after-sales package fully automatic unbricking," and "8 Elite fuse version boot," aimed squarely at this group's pain points.
- 2025-12-18's "SK-ROOT one-click patch, just do it with Violet Toolbox" has 39.7k views (BV1AVqnBREpg).
3.3 A free alternative to paid tools
- OPPO 9008 flashing normally requires official authorization; the scene has long relied on paid authorization, paid flashing tools, and remote flashing/unbricking services (such as 大侠阿木's "remote flashing rescue" and various "authorization-free" tools). The v3.2 changelog states it outright: it "supports merge-free Super flashing, the same as paid tools, using a cloud bootloader" (Telegram 2026-06-13).
- The positioning is "permanently free, donations only go to servers," and both the README and the official site emphasize "the free phone-hacking toolbox with the most features in China."
3.4 Open source and the direct "ask for stars" move
- 2026-09-11's open-source notice (pinned on Telegram) gives three reasons: studies are busy and one person can't maintain it; rumors that the tool carries a virus; and some people in the scene use AI to decompile and modify Violet Toolbox and resell it for a fee. Open-sourcing both clears its name and removes the resellers' information advantage. The notice ends by saying plainly: "Hope everyone will use their money-making little hands to give Violet Toolbox a free Star... it matters a lot to the streamers."
- Key evidence: the tool has a built-in remote notice bar. At startup, the code
MainWindow.BroadcastNotice.csfetcheshttps://violettool.top/notice.jsonand rotates it in the UI; the file's current content is"Violet Toolbox is now open source, still haven't starred it? Click to jump!", with a link straight to the GitHub repo (scraped 2026-11-06). This mechanism has existed since the very first open-source commit. The site shows about 2,300 program runs and about 200 new downloads a day; at +13~29 stars per day, roughly 0.5%~1% of daily runs convert to a star, which matches the steady, spikeless curve exactly. - The README added a Star History chart (10-23 commits) and 7-language READMEs (Simplified/Traditional Chinese, English, Japanese, Hindi, Vietnamese, Korean), signaling outward expansion, but so far no evidence of overseas spread has turned up.
3.5 Where users come from (distribution)
- The author's own Bilibili account: 「泡菜学不会」22.9k followers, with the signature "consistently publishing high-quality, low-barrier phone-hacking tutorials; fan group: 996179163"; the tool is the companion to the tutorials.
- Secondary spread on Bilibili: 「风淼数码」's "Violet Toolbox discussion group... thanks to the author @泡菜学不会" has 40k views and 1,277 favorites (BV1KBD9B9E68,2026-04-12); 「中秋园月饼」's configuration tutorial has 2,688 views (10-05, and 月饼 is also on the official site's thanks list); other UPs' Root tutorials use it as the tool of choice.
- Douyin: there are landing pages for searches like "how to unlock bootloader on Violet Toolbox Xiaomi" (douyin.com/shipin/7642132116704135177); scale unverified.
- Coolapk: the author's Coolapk ID is 33872028 (written on the tool's About page); follower count unverified.
- QQ groups / Telegram: discussion group 1004751402, fan group 996179163; the Telegram channel has 2,510 subscribers, and each version update ships there.
- Reposted on resource and download sites: Geek ROOT, LSPosed Chinese community, Tech Players, Donghai phone repair forum (V3.7 thread), 5577, Anfensi, Tengfei and many other download sites index it (Exa search results). This is the classic long-tail organic SEO of Chinese PC tools.
- Cross-linking within the scene: the official acknowledgments list "皓皓的小月" (author of the chfROM OPPO package downloader, www.xiaoyue.uno/), and the tool's "flashing resources" page links to Daxia Amu's OnePlus ROM site, Firefly resource site, Xiyu community and others (violettool.top/public.json). Several personal OPPO flashing-circle sites send traffic to each other.
- X / HN / Reddit: x-radar shows searches for "VioletToolBox" and "紫罗兰工具箱" at 90 mentions each over the past 0 days; no English media coverage found.
4. Competitors
| Competitors | Form | Launched | Scale | How it differs from Violet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phone Toolbox (Chenzhongjiang) | Windows, closed-source and free | About 2017, V11 2025 | B station video published with 796k views and 50k likes (BV15D4y1c7xr) | Focuses on rootless ADB phone tinkering; weaker on deep flashing, 9008, and OPPO brick recovery; long-established and much better known |
| UotanToolboxNT | Open-source cross-platform Avalonia app | 2024-01 | 2,797 stars, +18 in the last 7 days | Cross-platform, supports OpenHarmony, more engineered; lacks OPPO 9008/ARB brick-recovery features, the "grey deep-water" functions, to the same extent |
| Aiwanji Toolbox | Android App | 2020 | Claims 400+ features; long-established on Coolapk | Phone-side, focused on system optimization and module management; does not do PC-side line-flashing or brick recovery |
| OnePlus All-in-One Toolbox / All-in-One Box (Daxia Amu) | Windows + website | Years | The best-known OnePlus ROM site in the circle, plus paid remote flashing and brick-recovery service | Only OnePlus/OPPO; the ROM site is one of Violet's upstream resource sources, and remote recovery is a paid service |
| chfROM (皓皓的小月) | Web / tool | Not verified | Not verified | OPPO package downloads and one-click flashing; its author is a collaborator credited by Violet, more an ally than a rival |
| Lian Toolbox / lianbox | Windows(BAT) | Not verified | QQ channel liantool123 | Line-flashing tool covering Meizu/Xiaomi/Red Magic/OnePlus, with a narrow feature set |
| BUBUTOOL, Yimin Flashing Tool, ADT Toolbox, etc. | Windows | Around 2025 | Small | Similar "flashing toolboxes"; some charge money, and their feature coverage is narrower than Violet's |
| OPPO official flashing tool / paid 9008 authorization | Official / grey market | long-standing | After-sales channel | Requires an authorization code or payment; Violet claims to offer the "same as paid tools" for free |
| bkerler/edl, FastbootEnhance, payload-dumper-go | Open-source command line / single-function tools | 2018–2021 | 2.7k / 1.4k / 3.6k star | Single capabilities that require command-line skills; Violet packages these (SharpEDL, payload-dumper, magiskboot, avbtool, etc.) into a beginner-friendly GUI |
| New "flashing toolboxes" appearing on GitHub | Open source | 2026 | Single-digit stars (ZHI-Flashtools, Yuxi-Flash-Studio, A-Meng toolbox, etc.) | Mostly small projects written with AI assistance over 2026 years, with no established user base |
Conclusion: many people do the same job, but the combination of "free + most complete features + focused on OPPO 9008/ARB brick recovery + the author publishes tutorials" is unique to it.
5. Differentiation, and whether that's why it took off
- Widest feature set, focused on OPPO's deep water: OPPO line-flashing + ARB fuse detection + 9008 cloud bootloader that skips merging Super + one-click root adapted to the latest KernelSU/SukiSU. Rivals either only do ADB tinkering (Chenzhong Jiang, Aiwanji), only cover one brand or one step, or charge money. This is the main reason it spread to 480k downloads in the circle.
- Free replacing paid: it offers for free what paid tools and paid authorizations in the circle used to provide, timed right with the ARB-fuse bricking wave, where users had strong demand.
- Tutorials as distribution: the author is himself a B station phone-tinkering UP, shipping the tool and tutorials together, so every tutorial is an install entry point.
- The direct cause of the GitHub stars is not differentiation but existing-user traffic: an in-tool notice board + a pinned Telegram announcement + group notifications on each update push people already using it to star it on GitHub. Going open-source was itself a defensive move against resale and to prove it's clean.
6. Visibility and copycats
- Visibility: it's spreading in small circles. The Chinese phone-tinkering scene (B station, QQ groups, Coolapk, resource sites) knows it; X/HN/Reddit/English media never mention it; it has no revenue to speak of (only tips).
- Copycats have already appeared:
- The author's open-source announcement itself says "there is a lot of AI-assisted decompiling and modifying of Violet Toolbox in the circle to resell it for money" and predicts that "after open-sourcing, a batch of new paid tools will flood the market."
- On GitHub,
xiejiahao111227/JiaHaoToolBox(Jiahao Toolbox, created 2026-09-20, 5 stars) explicitly states it is "modified from the open-source project Violet Toolbox"; there are another 64~69 forks. - In 2026 a batch of similar "flashing toolboxes" appeared on GitHub (ZHI-Flashtools using .NET 10 WPF for EDL 9008, Yuxi-Flash-Studio, MacAndroidToolbox, A-Meng toolbox, etc.); whether they borrowed Violet's code is unverified.
7. What to borrow
- Build an existing user base on content platforms first, then open-source to collect stars: a year of B station tutorials plus free tools accumulated hundreds of thousands of users, so on the day of open-sourcing there was a ready-made source of stars.
- In-app remote notice board (notice.json): a static JSON can redirect every online client anywhere at any time (GitHub, new versions, a sponsorship page), a zero-cost owned push channel.
- Cash in on pain created by platform events: vendor policy (the ARB blocker, 9008 authorization) bricked a lot of users, and whoever first ships a free one-click unbrick tool plus a companion video catches the traffic.
- Free replacement for paid grey-market tools, using "permanently free + open source to prove it's clean" to build trust, with tips covering server costs.
- This model could transfer to other hardware circles where "official tools are fragmented and the circle relies on paid tools" (router and portable WiFi flashing, car head units, e-readers, drone remotes; GitHub already has people building similar toolboxes for F50 and DJI RC2).
8. Uncertain
- The official site's 500k installs and 5.04M runs are the author's own counts (the code reports
open-count/increment); the basis is unverified and may include duplicate installs. - The GitHub stargazer detail endpoint returned 404 on the day / requires authentication, so day-by-day sources can't be retrieved; we have no data in our database for the specific distribution between 9-11 and 10-16 (0→440), but it's presumably also driven by the notice board and group notifications.
- The scale on Coolapk, Douyin and QQ groups is unverified; the author's B station video-list API is rate-limited, so only single-video data was obtained.
- Legal/platform risk: FRP bypass, forced OEM unlocking, 9008 free authorization, and circumventing vendor restrictions could get it flagged or actioned by vendors or platforms; tip revenue is opaque.