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10 most popular coding fonts
- hprotagonist 9y agoI can't tell the difference in any of the static images between fonts; only the animation. apparently i'm a font heathen, though, because i use menlo or consolas.
- bungle 9y agoMe too. Everytime I try these, I come back to Menlo. Now I don't even try others anymore.
- dim13 9y agoTry SF Mono.
- slavik81 9y agoThe most obvious difference is probably in the 0s. For example, I would never use Droid Sans Mono (#8) because it lacks a clear distinction between O and 0.
- amag 9y agoWith the abundance of fonts available today, I can't see any reason for the existence of a programming font that doesn't properly differentiate between 0/O and 1/l/I/|.
- arvinsim 9y agoI use Menlo on MacOS and Consolas on Windows. Pray tell me why we are regarded as heathens.
- hprotagonist 9y agoah there's more than one of me. now we are font sectarians. come, brother!
- nkcmr 9y agomy personal favorite: http://input.fontbureau.com/ http://input.fontbureau.com/
- platz 9y agoIt's high quality, but I think the squarish-look of the letters makes it hard to read at smaller sizes.
- er0k 9y agoI'm still using profont http://tobiasjung.name/profont/ http://tobiasjung.name/profont/
- borzale 9y agoI thought I was the only one. I much prefer small fonts and I am often made fun of for it. This font is still great, but I often have problems on OSX with the font becoming blurry and not being able to set anti-aliasing properly.
- JoshTriplett 9y agoBitstream Vera Sans Mono is obsolete at this point; DejaVu Sans Mono is a complete replacement for it, with better language coverage.
- grafelic 9y agoDina font forever.
- jennius 9y agoLove this kerning
- khana 9y agoCourier New bro.
- platz 9y agoBitstream Vera Sans Mono has been my goto for a long time. I've recently switched to Iosevka ; it's a little quirkier but also good.
- adontz 9y agoI use "DejaVu Sans Mono" for a few years because of number of supported languages. It may seem that software developer needs only English, but I actually have to view files in at least three languages, like HTML, XML, JSON, other data files, including localization files. So it is nice to have all symbols rendered with the same font.
- thomastjeffery 9y agoIt's also a lovely font. Just enough serif. Clearly distinct characters. Characters take up their space without filling it.
- chirau 9y agoAre people really that conscious about coding fonts? Maybe it's just me, but I am more concerned with color palettes for the code highlighting more than fonts. I barely notice font differences in most cases. When it comes to fonts, any gun can shoot really. Except Wingdings, where is that font even used?
- Fnoord 9y agoAgreed. FWIW, after trying out many fonts (some are mentioned here) I settled on Cousine and PragmataPro depending on the terminal application. One uses Bash, other one Fish. One's for serious work, one's for quick work or backup. Etc etc. Both have the same color palette though (Solarized Dark).
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoI know a guy that codes in Javanese just to piss off whoever is looking over his shoulder. It's very good at that.
- pamqzl 9y agoDid he learn the Javanese alphabet just for this purpose?
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoIt's a font that's really annoying.
- dwringer 9y agoI've had different opinions on fonts over the years, sometimes with little to no preference and other times trying to use a single font across all my devices. I finally decided the only real preference I had was not seeing the same font all the time for a long time. Seeing a similar pattern with my preferences toward color themes, I finally decided to stop letting myself worry about it and set up [1] for my fonts and [2] for color themes. Every time I launch emacs it chooses at random from up to 22 available monospace fonts, 4 font sizes, and 38 color themes. This has proven very useful for juggling large numbers of sessions on the same desktop (especially with window translucency). [1]https://github.com/dwringer/emacs/blob/master/.emacs#L120-L177 https://github.com/dwringer/emacs/blob/master/.emacs#L120-L1... [2]https://github.com/dwringer/emacs/blob/master/.emacs#L210-L265 https://github.com/dwringer/emacs/blob/master/.emacs#L210-L2...
- fimdomeio 9y agoI've been using office code pro (source code pro fork) at 10pt for a few years now. I try other fonts every 6 months or so but keep coming back
- dheera 9y agoDroid Sans Mono is great but I like a dotted-zero variant for coding: https://github.com/AlbertoDorado/droid-sans-mono-zeromod https://github.com/AlbertoDorado/droid-sans-mono-zeromod
- arrakeen 9y agoi decided to give Go Mono[1] a chance when they released it almost a year ago and i love it! and to the HN commenter who said i wouldn't last a week with the font, i thumb my nose [1] https://blog.golang.org/go-fonts https://blog.golang.org/go-fonts
- rjbwork 9y agoNo consolas? How is that non in the top 10??
- georgemcbay 9y agoI don't mind that Consolas wasn't featured (even though it is my personal choice), but not mentioning it in the Inconsolata listing seems like a huge oversight, to say the least.
- drivingmenuts 9y agoBecause the article isn't actually a popularity list - it's an opinion list. Down at the bottom, the author mentions that last bit. There's no numbers, no statistics, no nothing. Just some opinionated designer regurgitating what we've read many times.
- thomastjeffery 9y agoHonestly, I'm not a fan. Too boxy.
- Splendor 9y agoIt would be nice to know what methodology (if any) was used to compile this list.
- brandonmenc 9y agoI've switched programming fonts about a million times in the past 20 years, and just recently settled on what I now consider to be the perfect font, and one that was hiding under my nose the whole time: Courier New.
- Ironchefpython 9y agoComic Sans Mono is far superior.
- toggle 9y agoHah, I always thought M+ 1m was my little secret that I had discovered; apparently it's the fifth most popular coding font. It's significantly more narrow than most monospaced fonts while still being easy to read, allowing for more side-by-side editor windows. I really like the way Fira Sans looks, and I used it for a while, but M+ 1m has a huge practical benefit. And it still looks great, too.
- abritinthebay 9y agoFira Code for me. It's based on Fira Mono but with a ton of useful ligatures for coding. Much better, and justifies the use of a special font, which IMO is not really worth it without ligatures. https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode
- SwellJoe 9y agoI switched to Fira Code a couple months ago, as well, and now when I don't have it I feel sad. The ligatures make my Perl and JS code so pretty. It's just more satisfying when I have to stare at the same project for hours.
- steinuil 9y agoI've been using Fixedsys Excelsior for months and I love it; it's pretty big compared to most bitmap fonts and it being bitmap keeps me from messing with fontconfig's hinting more than necessary. The only flaw is that it doesn't have an italic or bold version. It does have a variant with programming ligatures though, if you're into that: https://github.com/kika/fixedsys https://github.com/kika/fixedsys
- barrkel 9y agoStill on Dina. Using a hinted ttf version where bitmap fonts are no longer supported. No other font scales down better.
- motyar 9y agoRoboto Mono Light is my favorite https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto+Mono https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto+Mono
- mxfh 9y agoThe article is missing to mention the most important change, when it comes to on screen fonts, in recent years: HiDPI displays. Before that, only a few monospaced fonts, like Consolas, with proper pixel hinting worked for me, or I had to go for absurdly high point sizes (16 or above) to not be irritated by uneven lines and dotted zeros with no gap. Since switching to Retina-like displays anything on that list works pretty well to personal preference and eye strain seems to have much reduced.
- dannyobrien 9y agoA shoutout to Iosevka: https://be5invis.github.io/Iosevka/ https://be5invis.github.io/Iosevka/ , which is not only extremely configurable with presets for other popular coding fonts so you can mix and match your preferences, but each glyph is composed from a set of underlying components, defined in a glorious and hackable lispish DSL. It also has a splendid set of ligatures. I think it's a work of art, and have been supporting the creator's patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5787198 https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5787198
- arvinsim 9y agoDoes the creator hate javascript? The preview for the language only shows a big array, not blocks of code :)
- dannyobrien 9y agoI believe the DSL compiles to JavaScript, so it may be that he sees it as fancy assembly :)
- GlenTheMachine 9y agoThanks for this. Beautiful font.
- teilo 9y agoWow! Thank you. Love it. And built-in Powerline glyphs so no need for a custom font.
- timrichard 9y agoMy favourite has to be Hasklig, with ligatures support enabled in WebStorm.
- elderK 9y agoRaize FTW :)
- chank 9y ago"10 fonts that I think most people writing code are using but I really have no idea..." should be the title of this. There's no way to know for sure, but realistically the most used fonts are probably Consolas, Inconsolata, Office Code Pro D and Monospace since these are the default fonts on the likely most used code editors (VS, Atom, Notepad++, Sublime, VSCode, Eclipse). Most vim/emacs users likely change their font from the default.
- dsego 9y agoRoboto Mono for some time, then Fira Code, now Hack, although that zero is fugly as hell. But it's got good spacing. Would love to find something with more character. Fira Code has it, but something about it is constantly making me nervous, it's not soft, it's more like a typewriter font. Mononoki and fantasque also look really cool, but keep dancing in front of my eyes, hard to read. Monaco is nice, but too goofy for my taste, akin to comic sans for code.
- AstralStorm 9y agoMisnamed. This is not a popularity list but someone's opinion listicle of worthlessness. If it were based on popularity we'd probably see staples like DejaVu Sans Mono, Liberation Mono, Consolas and Courier New in there. Which are perfectly serviceable. Or probably some interesting CJK fonts even. Heck, some people I know don't even use monospace fonts for coding.
- chmaynard 9y ago> Heck, some people I know don't even use monospace fonts for coding. As I recall, the first Apple IDE (MPW) used Helvetica. You had to use tabs to indent source code. Drove me crazy.