[Sprint LG Optimus G] stevek216:
Stock Based

Rom Name: Stock

Developer: Everyone's favorite South Korean electronics manufacturer, LG! (Samsung,pffff)

Link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2176365 (in case you need to flash back to stock)

Brief Description: Not much needed here. Everybody's pretty familiar with this one!

Pros: It's what LG and Sprint want for you. They think this is just the bees knees, and if you think they have your best interests at heart, keep it! Most of the actual pros I'll discuss in lifeless.

Cons: Bloat, primarily. I've yet to meet the person who actually uses Sprint Zone. The messaging app is kind of buggy, I've heard, though since the JB update I haven't encountered much.

Major Bugs: None as far as I know.

Rom Name: Lifeless

Developer: AdriVelazquez

Link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2083320

Brief Description: Essentially (stock) - (bloat) + (tweaks) = lifeless. If you seek (stock)-(nearly everything that isn't necessary) check out imperium. If you like stock but don't like all of the Sprint/LG nonsense, this could be the one. And if it's worth anything to you, this is probably the rom that you'll find on my phone most of the time.

Pros:

- Aroma Installer allows you to get a VERY customized rom experience. Choose boot animation, preinstalled apps, which bloat you like, launchers, tweaks, sotkeys

- Liberty Evolved kernel optional. For most up to date version, see note at end of section.

- You can get just about as close to or as far from stock as you'd like while still being stock. If you don't think you can as far from stock as you'd like to be, consider Imperium (also stock based) or an AOSP rom.

- Performance/battery options like eco-mode and power saver.

- Pretty customizable lockscreen, with the cool dewdrop animation.

Cons: (note that these aren't really faults of the rom itself, it dos what it purports to do quite admirably)

- Still looks like stock, which is only a con if you hate the stock look. The notification pull-down menu is still cluttered. The settings app is still goofy looking.

- 4.1.2, not 4.2. So no lockscreen widgets, or any other advantages that 4.2 has to offer.

Major Bugs: None. One of the more bug-free roms, and if that's something you value, you should seriously consider this.

Rom Name: Imperium Initiative

Developer: Lokifish Marz

Link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2111607

Brief Description: This is basically stock totally stripped down and outfitted to look like AOSP. Conceived and manifested at a time when there wasn't any taste of AOSP available for our Optimus G, this rom did a good job emulating AOSP. However, it is stock based, however little it may look it. The developer behind it, Lokifish Marz, wanted me to mention that it's not really a rom, it just plays one on TV. In his words, it's "more a lightweight tuned base and series of mods for other devs and tinkerers to build and test on for their own ROMs and kernels". (If you want more info, his post is on the second page.)

However I'm going to leave it listed as a ROM, since I think that's what most users (myself included, up until mere hours ago) view it as. ROM or not, I think it's the most "barebones" option available.

Pros:

- Liberty Evolved Kernel included, though not the most up to date version. See note at the end of this section.

- AOSP look and feel, for the most part

- Relative stability of a stock based rom

- Quite nearly zero bloat

- Itsy bitsy (<500 mb) size. For reference, the stock ZVB rom is over a gig.

- Has a fun martian theme, right down to the background and boot image.

- Total feature list (copied from thread)

Almost all bloat and Google apps have been removed

AOSP/CM calculator, calendar and email replaces LG calculator, calendar and email

ES Explorer replaces LG file browser

AOSP lockscreen

AOSP 4.2 Keyboard

Jelly Bean Softkeys (change qemu.hw.mainkeys=0 to qemu.hw.mainkeys=1 in build.prop to disable)

Google Wallet

Android Tuner as system app

ROMstats added (server currently down)

Removed OTA service

Removed Connection Optimizer

Removed Qualcomm location enhancer

GPS tweaks

Liberty-Evolved v1.13 kernel (thanks Evolutionmods)

Camera tweaks (thanks _Epic)

Thermal mod (thanks Adri)

Awesome Beats Audio (Acid Audio was a major source of issues in the previous release)

Tuned to provide better battery life

Wifi scan changed to 300

Network tweaks (included tweaks for all network types the hardware supports)

Over 200,000 AdBlock hosts built in

build.prop edits and cleaning

Has my personal "loki" init.d script

Imperium standard issue default wallpaper

Martian Imperium boot animation with device info, build info and credits

Frees up tons of RAM and space in /system

Tons of other tweaks I can't remember

Cons:

- If there are any stock features you DO like, you might have to jump through hoops to reimplement them on this rom. Lifeless has the edge in that you can selectively remove things upon install.

Major Bugs: Again, fairly bug free as far as I know. While I ran it I had no major issues.

Note/Plug:

Liberty Evolved Kernel: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2181976

Developer: EvolutionMods

I highly recommend this kernel. It's very stable, still in active development, and can only help. It's currently for stock based roms only.

There's now an alternate kernel for those running AOSP.

Houcha kernel: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2246163

I haven't really used it yet but it's always nice to have choices!