Nokia dropped the ball on software support for the 23. They promised 3 years of updates and delivered 1. But the community has done what HMD refused to do: optimize.

In conclusion, the quest for a "Nokia 23 custom ROM" highlights a disparity between consumer desire and hardware reality. While the smartphone world thrives on open-source modification, feature phones remain locked fortresses of proprietary code. The closest users can get is firmware modification—a risky, niche hobby reserved for those with soldering irons and hex editors. For the average user, the Nokia feature phone remains a device best enjoyed as it was engineered to be: simple, reliable, and unchangeable.

DerpFest offers hundreds of UI tweaks (status bar mods, QS panel styles, lock screen clocks). If your "Nokia 23" has 3GB+ RAM, this is a fun choice.

Here are some of the most popular custom ROMs available for the Nokia 2.3: