4 ms·

Show HN: A Better Alternative to Font Awesome – Unicons

40 points by tarunmangukiya 7y ago

mdszy 7y ago
What makes this "better"?
- evnix 7y ago
  css.gg is actually better because now you don't need additional svg files, no fancy webpack/rollup build tools plugins required, it is plain css and you can copy paste the css that you need.
  - 013 7y ago
    This looks pretty cool. Is there a simple way to just use the CSS for icons that you use and discard the rest?
    - mdszy 7y ago
      If you view the icons it shows the CSS you can add yourself to have just that icon, or a link to import just that one icon via their site.
    - tarunmangukiya 7y ago
      Yep here you go https://iconscout.com/unicons/getting-started/line https://iconscout.com/unicons/getting-started/line.
  - tarunmangukiya 7y ago
    Have you checked this? https://iconscout.com/unicons/getting-started/line https://iconscout.com/unicons/getting-started/line. We do support plain optimized CSS :)
- russh 7y ago
  The license restrictions? "No Unlawful Useused to create pornographic, libelous, obscene or defamatory Material. No Commercial use of “Editorial Only” Items: You can not use content marked "Editorial Only" for any commercial, promotional, advertorial, endorsement, advertising or merchandising purpose. This type of content is not model or property released and is intended to be used only in connection with events that are newsworthy or of general interest."
  - mdszy 7y ago
    Which icon set has this restriction? I'm not seeing it in Font Awesome's.
    - tarunmangukiya 7y ago
      Line Icons are under Apache-2.0 license. https://github.com/iconscout/unicons https://github.com/iconscout/unicons
  - stevenicr 7y ago
    Thank you for pointing this out, it took me a long time to find this ( https://iconscout.com/licenses https://iconscout.com/licenses ) - and in the process I became extremely confused about what license one gets when they use the different plans (free, 69 per year, etc) - What started out as, this might be cool - (I'm always looking for ways to reduce size of fonts and icons!) - to how does this work? (tooltips would be helpful for me, I have no idea what things are supposed to DO on this page, like the bottom right and bottom left icons..) - I also could not find details on how to use the code (where is the cdn / download css etc like font awesome has) After spending so much time trying to find the "how" - and then looking for the license restrictions, and seeing there are all kinds of other upsells and more restrictions on uses - this won't be bookmarked or used by me or anyone I know. Not that this thing is bad - it may be great for some people for some reason - there are many things that have those kinds of use restrictions that may be useful for people, but will never be on my consider list.
    - tarunmangukiya 7y ago
- tarunmangukiya 7y ago
  There are multiple factors: - We've designed these icons according to new design styles like Flat in mind. Thus all the line icons are pretty sleek when it comes to usage compared to Font Awesome. - You can request more icons from us and we'll be happy to add them to the library. We're mostly adding new icons on monthly basis. - We love & powered by Open Source. So all our premium icons are free for all the open source projects. - First ever unique Monochrome style available that will look great for all your landing pages too. - Many more!
KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
You should get a github, seriously the way I bookmark these things these days is github stars.
- tarunmangukiya 7y ago
  We've that here: https://github.com/iconscout/unicons https://github.com/iconscout/unicons Btw, good idea to post GitHub here! Will do it next time :D
philipkiely 7y ago
One thing I'm always interested in with products like this is the economics of hosting a CDN of static assets for a large base of free users. How is it that products like this, or like Font Awesome at a much larger scale, can support the needs of so many free users? I understand that some free CDNs for open-source libraries like Bootstrap operate based on in-kind donations from hosting providers, but I still wonder how the model in general stays afloat.

mdszy 7y ago

What makes this "better"?

evnix 7y ago
css.gg is actually better because now you don't need additional svg files, no fancy webpack/rollup build tools plugins required, it is plain css and you can copy paste the css that you need.
- 013 7y ago
  This looks pretty cool. Is there a simple way to just use the CSS for icons that you use and discard the rest?
  - mdszy 7y ago
    If you view the icons it shows the CSS you can add yourself to have just that icon, or a link to import just that one icon via their site.
  - tarunmangukiya 7y ago
    Yep here you go https://iconscout.com/unicons/getting-started/line https://iconscout.com/unicons/getting-started/line.
- tarunmangukiya 7y ago
  Have you checked this? https://iconscout.com/unicons/getting-started/line https://iconscout.com/unicons/getting-started/line. We do support plain optimized CSS :)
russh 7y ago
The license restrictions? "No Unlawful Useused to create pornographic, libelous, obscene or defamatory Material. No Commercial use of “Editorial Only” Items: You can not use content marked "Editorial Only" for any commercial, promotional, advertorial, endorsement, advertising or merchandising purpose. This type of content is not model or property released and is intended to be used only in connection with events that are newsworthy or of general interest."
- mdszy 7y ago
  Which icon set has this restriction? I'm not seeing it in Font Awesome's.
  - tarunmangukiya 7y ago
    Line Icons are under Apache-2.0 license. https://github.com/iconscout/unicons https://github.com/iconscout/unicons
- stevenicr 7y ago
  Thank you for pointing this out, it took me a long time to find this ( https://iconscout.com/licenses https://iconscout.com/licenses ) - and in the process I became extremely confused about what license one gets when they use the different plans (free, 69 per year, etc) - What started out as, this might be cool - (I'm always looking for ways to reduce size of fonts and icons!) - to how does this work? (tooltips would be helpful for me, I have no idea what things are supposed to DO on this page, like the bottom right and bottom left icons..) - I also could not find details on how to use the code (where is the cdn / download css etc like font awesome has) After spending so much time trying to find the "how" - and then looking for the license restrictions, and seeing there are all kinds of other upsells and more restrictions on uses - this won't be bookmarked or used by me or anyone I know. Not that this thing is bad - it may be great for some people for some reason - there are many things that have those kinds of use restrictions that may be useful for people, but will never be on my consider list.
  - tarunmangukiya 7y ago
tarunmangukiya 7y ago
There are multiple factors: - We've designed these icons according to new design styles like Flat in mind. Thus all the line icons are pretty sleek when it comes to usage compared to Font Awesome. - You can request more icons from us and we'll be happy to add them to the library. We're mostly adding new icons on monthly basis. - We love & powered by Open Source. So all our premium icons are free for all the open source projects. - First ever unique Monochrome style available that will look great for all your landing pages too. - Many more!

KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago

You should get a github, seriously the way I bookmark these things these days is github stars.

tarunmangukiya 7y ago
We've that here: https://github.com/iconscout/unicons https://github.com/iconscout/unicons Btw, good idea to post GitHub here! Will do it next time :D

philipkiely 7y ago

One thing I'm always interested in with products like this is the economics of hosting a CDN of static assets for a large base of free users. How is it that products like this, or like Font Awesome at a much larger scale, can support the needs of so many free users? I understand that some free CDNs for open-source libraries like Bootstrap operate based on in-kind donations from hosting providers, but I still wonder how the model in general stays afloat.