akaio is faster than the official
akaio has quicker directory scrolling
akaio has more features than the official
akaio has a rewritten cheat engine
akaio features 2 dma modes which have been rewritten countless times to improve performance and compatibility
akaio 1.5 will feature custom gba frames
akaio is updated (coded) daily, the official is updated to fix rom loader issues
the official is never rewritten, improved upon, etc. only games fixes are released. its the same slow firmware that it was a year ago...
every recent rom fix on the official came from the akaio devs
akaio features external loaders, no need to update the entire firmware
akaio features rewritten and updated 3in1, f2a support for gba expanison packs
akaio features the "tab" menu view, the official does not.
akaio is well documented via the wiki, the official has very little documentation.
akaio devs can be found in #acekard on the gbatemp irc network, the official team takes months to return an e-mail.
akaio has much higher compatibility than the official.
akaio supports the ak2/ak2.1/ak2i/ak r.p.g./ak+ the official only supports either ak2 or rpg (akaio = acekard all in one)
official rpg support is no longer updated.