The official project stopped updating and so did its successor: how Shizuku-Next got 1,500 stars in 41 days by 'continuing' the project

There's a small Android tool called Shizuku with 44.7M installs on Play, and this year nobody maintained it: the official project went over a year without an update and broke as soon as Android 17 arrived; the fork people switched to was paused by its author in July. At the end of September, a developer who makes repackaging patches opened a new fork called Shizuku-Next, whose README's first line says 'I'm picking up where thedjchi left off'. In 41 days it has 1,483 stars, and it adds about 280 more every week. Below: how this vacuum appeared, where the stars came from, and whether you can use this 'successor' playbook.

A Japanese user's weekend

On Oct 2026 3, a Japanese user posted on note.com with the title "Shizuku has way too many forks!" His Pixel 10 had moved to Android 17 QPR1, and the thedjchi version of Shizuku on it would no longer open. Checking the issue tracker, he found maintenance had stopped. He went looking for a replacement fork, found "so many forks it's annoying," and installed them one by one.

When he got to the Shizuku-Next section, he wrote: "The main selling point seems to be that you don't have to type the pairing code." He then added that on his phone it wouldn't work even after granting permissions, and manual launch crashed, so he didn't write a review. His top recommendation was another fork, porter.

A fork that even its testers couldn't get running went from 317 to over 1,200 stars that month.

What Shizuku is, and why so many people need it

Shizuku lets regular apps borrow ADB (or root) permissions to call system APIs, so you don't need to root your phone. Freezing system apps, changing permissions, installing modified apps, and tweaking animation speed all run on it as the base layer. The official version on Play has 44.7M installs, and gained another 7k in the last 720 days (Google Play, 11-06).

Shizuku-Next is a fork of it. It keeps the original package name and interfaces, so apps that depend on Shizuku don't need changes. On top of that it adds automatic handling of wireless debugging pairing (on some phones it can read the pairing code itself), start on boot, a watchdog that restarts it automatically, a built-in shell and file browser, app ops and firewall management, an ADB module system, and a Material 3 interface. Open source, Apache-2.0, with only a Buy Me a Coffee link.

How the gap opened

(GitHub commits and issues across repos)

Demand kept rising while the working versions stopped one after another. In July someone tested several forks in the official issue tracker, and many worked fine on Android 17. "Only the official one is broken." The problem wasn't technical. Users simply didn't know which one to trust.

Where the stars came from

People were waiting from day one. On the day of the Sep 28 release it gained +123 stars, reached #2 on the Kotlin trending chart, then +85 and +65 over the next two days (trendshift). It wasn't discovered slowly. The author, rushiranpise, was already known in the Morphe (successor to ReVanced) patching scene. morphe-patches has 1,012 stars, and the author has 482 GitHub followers. Apps patched with Morphe need Shizuku, so the two communities are nearly the same people. On Reddit, someone in r/MorpheApp posted that they'd switched from thedjchi to Next, and r/HowToMen simply called it "the one made by the Morphe patches author."

The "successor" label. The first line of the README reads "continues development of thedjchi's fork." awesome-shizuku (10.7k stars), the ecosystem's list of entry points, describes it in the forks section as "Maintained continuation of thedjchi's fork." For a user who doesn't know where to go, that one line works better than any feature list.

Visibly alive. It shipped 31 releases in 41 days, about 15 of them stable, and merged 48 PRs. The app can update itself, so cumulative release downloads reached 250k (GitHub, 11-06; includes repeat updates, so not a user count).

YouTube in Brazil and India. On Oct 9, the Brazilian channel ODORIZZI posted "ADEUS ROOT! How to enable the all-new SHIZUKU NEXT," with 218k views and 430 comments. On Oct 17, the Indian channel Zx Tweaks posted "GOODBYE ROOT! Shizuku Next Is INSANE," with 63k views (YouTube, 11-06). One of the most-liked comments under the Brazilian video said: "Now I can turn off developer mode and Shizuku still runs, and apps that didn't work before do." Another warned "Google is about to start blocking sideloading, this app matters"; that kind of anxiety may also be driving demand (inference). Portuguese, Japanese and German blogs, plus TechyNoob and DroidWin, followed with tutorials, and from Oct 9 onward it steadily gained +20 to 40 per day.

(daily GitHub stars) Over the last 7 days +285, the first 7 days +258, and still slightly accelerating. I didn't see any paid acquisition, almost nobody mentions it on X, and no major tech outlet covered it.

The features are borrowed, and that's not a dirty word

The acknowledgments in the README are clear: features come from thedjchi, Nightzuku, shevery, ShizuWall and others. It stitches together the strengths of several forks and states one pain point in one sentence: you used to re-pair after every reboot, and now you don't have to type the code.

Other forks the same week (GitHub, 11-06):

The forks have similar total stars, but the new follows flowed most to this one. The difference isn't the code. It's "I'm the legitimate successor" + "I ship releases every day" + "I bring my own crowd."

One caveat: it changed the signing key, so you have to uninstall the official or thedjchi version before installing (quoting the README). Apps that depend on it don't need changes, but users have to reinstall and re-authorize, so it isn't entirely zero-cost.

If it were you

Verdict: B. "Take over a high-install open-source tool that's been abandoned and broken by a new OS version" is a clear, copyable playbook for earning stars, but the Shizuku niche is already crowded, and Shizuku-Next's 123 stars on day one came from the author's existing community.

Who it suits: developers who already have some name recognition in small Android tinkering, patching or self-hosting circles, or people willing to ship releases frequently for two or three months and answer issues carefully.

Who it doesn't suit: anyone planning a seventh Shizuku fork. Users are already complaining about too many forks, and you'd only add another paragraph to that post. Also not for people who ship once and leave. The core of this approach is staying alive.

How to do it, ranked by how worthwhile:

1. Finding the next Shizuku: look for open-source tools with tens of thousands of stars or millions of installs, no commit in over six months, and issues from people shouting that the new OS version broke them. Android 17, new iOS versions, and major Python or Node upgrades all create this kind of vacuum in bulk. Keep the package name, interfaces and config format, put "continues [original author]'s work" in the first line of the README, then contact the maintainer of the relevant awesome list and ask them to list you as the maintained continuation.
2. Going the "less is more" way: the fork crowd already has feature-heavy bundles, and routes like porter's "only the original, only guaranteed to work" are actively recommended by people. In other abandoned projects, the most stable, smallest successor build is also a viable position.
3. Building around the Shizuku ecosystem: the author already runs a directory of 1,628 Shizuku-compatible apps. ADB modules, device-specific pairing troubleshooting guides, and WebUI templates for modules are all still scattered. The star ceiling is low, but the bet is almost risk-free.

Getting users: on day one, rely on your existing circles (Discord, Telegram, Reddit subreddits); in week one, get onto awesome lists and trending charts; after that, turn the pain point into a title like "GOODBYE ROOT" and pitch it to phone-tinkering YouTubers in Brazil, India and Indonesia. Their videos routinely draw tens of thousands to a couple hundred thousand views, and they find the topics themselves.

When the window closes: the window follows major OS releases. This wave on Android 17 probably runs until the Android 18 beta arrives in the first half of next year. If the official Shizuku resumes updates, every fork's story gets weaker (inference).

Signs you've misread this: (1) the official RikkaApps/Shizuku resumes commits and fixes Android 17 before year-end, while Shizuku-Next's weekly star gains drop into double digits. That would mean it was only capturing the vacuum, and the successor playbook has a shorter shelf life than estimated here. (2) The reverse: if a bare-bones fork with no community or influencers, like porter, also reaches a thousand stars in two months, then the "successor" label alone is strong enough and the author's audience matters less, so this could be scored an A. (3) If stability complaints (like the crashes the Japanese user hit) pile up in issues and Reddit while stars keep climbing, then stars are following the narrative and release cadence, not usability. That's worth learning from, and worth being wary of.

Data and sources

GitHub: rushiranpise/Shizuku-Next repo page, README, releases and daily stars (10-17 to 11-06); RikkaApps/Shizuku issue #2180; thedjchi/Shizuku README and issue #320; star counts and weekly gains for comparable forks (11-06). trendshift first-day data and trending charts. Google Play: official Shizuku install count (11-06). note.com "Shizukuの派生が多すぎる!" (10-03). awesome-shizuku list. YouTube: ODORIZZI (10-09), Zx Tweaks (10-17) videos and comments. Reddit: post titles in r/MorpheApp, r/HowToMen, r/ShizukuforAndroid. Portuguese, Japanese and German blogs and TechyNoob and DroidWin tutorials. Where it says "inference," it's inference.