8 ms·

Font Comparison: Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono vs. JetBrains Mono and Fira Code

258 points by maybebyte 1y ago

bityard 1y ago
For those who just want to have one nice reliable monospace font and move onto other concerns in life, there is Hack: https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/ https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/
- zettabomb 1y ago
  Somehow this just seems like throwing a fourth choice into the mix, rather than simplifying anything.
maybebyte 1y ago
After redesigning my website to use Atkinson Hyperlegible fonts, I switched my terminal and code editor to the monospace variant to properly test it. After a month of testing and positive experiences, I felt motivated to investigate further and write an article comparing Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono to JetBrains Mono and Fira Code. The visual comparisons use examples from an accessibility paper on homoglyphs and mirror glyphs. I chose JetBrains Mono and Fira Code as a baseline, since many developers use these fonts and find them familiar. While Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono excels at character distinction, nothing is perfect. I detail trade-offs in the "Caveats" section, below the installation instructions. I'm curious to hear others' experiences and thoughts. I'm fascinated by what role font choice plays in legibility and accessibility, but the research is relatively sparse in this area.
- esafak 1y ago
  I would link to the downloads in the opening paragraph. My impression is that while legible it is too fat. You'll notice that Fira Code and JetBrains Mono are similarly wide -- and narrower than Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono.
  - maybebyte 1y ago
    Sure, I'll add it in. I'll post the links here as well just in case: https://github.com/googlefonts/atkinson-hyperlegible-next-mono https://github.com/googlefonts/atkinson-hyperlegible-next-mo... I'd recommend getting it from there rather than the Braille Institute's website since they require an email and EULA, but here's the other download link anyway. https://www.brailleinstitute.org/freefont/ https://www.brailleinstitute.org/freefont/ Also, Nerd Fonts added Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono in their v3.4.0 release. https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/tag/v3.4.0 https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/tag/v3.4.0 With Nerd Fonts, I'd recommend downloading both and setting up a fallback system through fontconfig though. Unfortunately, some versions (Nerd Fonts, official download) are still missing the backtick/grave glyph. https://github.com/googlefonts/atkinson-hyperlegible-next-mono/issues/3 https://github.com/googlefonts/atkinson-hyperlegible-next-mo...
  - tracker1 1y ago
    I'm pretty much there with you. I tend to use Fira Code for the improved visibility, but really would prefer Consolas/Inconsolata, but there are a few character variations that I don't like as much and it's slightly harder to read (for me). I also have come to rely on the Nerd Fonts enhancements with my terminal prompt (Starship).
- alienbaby 1y ago
  I was hoping to see some comparisons of blocks of English text, and blocks of program code text, rather than just character by character. That would help me understand how it feels to read in arbitrary blocks, as well as appreciate specific design characteristics.
  - jasperry 1y ago
    I agree. This is a very enlightening discussion of individual glyph features that affect readability. But the thing that hit me immediately is the difference in how expanded or condensed these fonts feel. Even though in the examples, the text width of JetBrains and Fira is identical, JetBrains "looks" condensed to the point of being harder to read. But I feel like Atkinson goes too far the other direction and is too expanded. When I read it, I feel like I'm tripping over the empty space between the characters, or I have to move my eyes too much to read one word.
  - maybebyte 1y ago
    This is good feedback, thank you. When I wrote the article, I erred on the side of too few comparison images rather than too many. What would you recommend for comparison blocks? "The five boxing wizards jump quickly" and maybe a fizzbuzz? For what it's worth, I generated the comparison images with Harfbuzz and ImageMagick, so in theory I could publish the script and then anyone could make their own comparison images. Fair warning: it's a quick and dirty shell script, written only to get the job done.
  - wentin 1y ago
    This might be of interest for you: https://www.codingfont.com/ https://www.codingfont.com/ I made it to select the perfect coding font. i will update it to include the Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono soon!
    - maybebyte 1y ago
      Hey, I'm a fan of your work. My font before this was Victor Mono, and I actually found it through your website. Do you publish the source code anywhere? I'd be interested to take a closer look at it.
- ninetyninenine 1y ago
  Character distinction isn't that important when reading english mainly because context automatically repairs any s1m1l4r1t1es b3tw33n w0rd5. Even numbers can be used the replace letters and it only slows down reading slightly. Leetspeak is only a worst case example. For example for b0Ok 0 and O causes virtually no pause.
  - kybernetikos 1y ago
    But that's the exact reason why it's problematic in contexts where the exact character is important in a way not clear from context. Atkinson Hyperlegible is my favourite for reading passwords or urls with codes in them etc.
    - ninetyninenine 1y ago
      But how often is this needed in daily life? Why not just pick something that’s aesthetically pleasing based on personal preference rather than legibility because reading passwords doesn’t happen often at all imo? Additionally the legibility metric used by the site isn’t even quantitative. It’s qualitative and opinionated so it’s not like there was an objective measure that says Atkinson is in actuality more hyperlegible… the hyper legibility is an opinion.
evertheylen 1y ago
Why don't we embrace proportional (i.e. not monospace) fonts more for coding? IMHO, they are a big step up when it comes to legibility. I personally switched after I noticed reading stuff in the sidebar (which is usually in a proportional font) felt more comfortable than reading code. You can't use it for a terminal of course, and occasionally I find comments relying on monospace alignment. Other than that I see no downside to proportional fonts. I use Input, which gives more room to special characters and is pretty nice overall: https://input.djr.com/ https://input.djr.com/
- esafak 1y ago
  Isn't it the opposite; use proportional fonts in the terminal but not code, where alignment matters? I am giving it a try, and I like it on first impression.
  - fainpul 1y ago
    Terminals usually don't support proportional fonts.
  - Jaxan 1y ago
    Alignment in the terminal matters. Even something like ls uses columns.
  - babypuncher 1y ago
    Tons and tons of terminal apps are written assuming a monospace font. Alignment matters and you don't have much control over that. In code, you can always choose a style that discourages spatial alignment.
- hollerith 1y ago
  Which IDE or editor are you viewing this proportional font in? A proportional font in Emacs doesn't look right to my eye. My guess is that there are subtleties in the spacing between letters when a browser or a book publisher renders the text that Emacs does not know about.
  - 1y ago
bonthron 1y ago
Maybe an acquired taste, but I'm fond of Intel One Mono ... https://github.com/intel/intel-one-mono https://github.com/intel/intel-one-mono designed for low-vision developers.
- ruuda 1y ago
  I switched to it after more than 12 years with Consolas, expecting to quickly get bored of it, like every other time I had a brief affair with a different font. But One Mono stuck!
- bayindirh 1y ago
  Looks like a great, functional font. I'm also a fan of Adobe Source Code Mono, but the look and feel of Berkeley Mono just wiped the floor of all these professional and well designed fonts. IBM's Plex Mono also a great contender for a "professional" programming font.
pmarreck 1y ago
My current favorite code font is Berkeley Mono https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono It's not free, but I love it. You can customize some variations too (like how zeroes look; I use the "invisible slash" look) and it has some support for terminal symbols and programming ligatures used by terminal tweaks like Powerline, etc.
- Void_ 1y ago
  I love this font! It's very well worth the price.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  Yeah, where there's Berkeley Mono, there are no alternatives. I love that font, and use it everywhere.
- braum 1y ago
  yep! I just got it the other day. I upgraded to get the variants but I quickly settled on the Regular which is included with $75 Dev license. It's amazing even using it for non-code like in Obsidian.
- nitinreddy88 1y ago
  Same here. No other font comes close to it in terms of readability. I really don't care about what each font claims about in terms of achiveness. As long as it's not pleasing to me, its not worth for me.
- aquir 1y ago
  Come here to say the same...expensive but worths it
pmarreck 1y ago
It just occurred to me that if HN supported, say, 4-bit mono PNG images with transparency in comments, that would help here without impacting bandwidth too much and might add a classy element
khaledh 1y ago
This is of course subjective, but I still find JetBrains Mono to be much more pleasant to read (when it comes to code) than any other mono font out there.
- speedgoose 1y ago
  Yes, same for me. I tried many fonts over the years and I settled on Comic Code and JetBrains Mono. I use one for code editors and the other for CLIs.
  - tommica 1y ago
    I use comic code in my editors and in cli - it's just fun and very readable
- RyanHamilton 1y ago
  I also found this and actually made it the default for an application I author with a few thousand users. Well it turned out jetbrains mono didn't support chinese characters so I broke my app for a proportion of my user base. I had to revert it. Also it can add seconds to load time. Just a warning as I think a few people on hn will make tools for others. I still set it as my own font.
  - microflash 1y ago
    You can always subset different fonts for different languages. This does two things: reduces the file size and allows some agents, such as your browser, load specific font depending on unicode range. I wrote a post about subsetting, in context of my personal site, here: https://www.naiyerasif.com/post/2024/06/27/how-i-subset-fonts-for-my-site/ https://www.naiyerasif.com/post/2024/06/27/how-i-subset-font...
DrBazza 1y ago
I moved on from these fonts quite some time ago and just use https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka everywhere. It's ideal for 'wordy' languages such as C++ where a typical line length can often go over 150 characters, and then you don't have to scroll sideways.
- ThisNameIsTaken 1y ago
  Adding to the list of 'this is what I am using', I have switched both terminal and code editor to Maple Mono[1]. Which, looking at TFA, seems to be somewhat similar in spirit as Atkinson Hyperlegible, although I haven't used that. Maple has many ligatures, I personally like the hypervisible [TODO]. Overall I find it very legible, even on small sizes, and pleasing also for writing e.g. in Markdown. [1] https://font.subf.dev/en/ https://font.subf.dev/en/ / https://github.com/subframe7536/maple-font https://github.com/subframe7536/maple-font
  - christophilus 1y ago
    I don’t like glyphs, but that normie mode looks excellent. I don’t know how I missed maple when doing my font search recently. Thanks for the link.
  - specialist 1y ago
    Those are some sexy glyphs (gaps in curly punctuation). The ligatures for keywords is clever. I appreciate those niceties. Like rendering small gaps in large numbers, eg '1000000' looks like '1 000 000'. IIRC Berkeley or Monospaced have a few neat tricks like that.
- bitwize 1y ago
  Iosevka is the most terminaly of the modern vector programming fonts, outside of perhaps Terminus. I set my Emacs to use it, as I haven't been able to find a font that comes anywhere near as comfortable.
forrestthewoods 1y ago
Website is down so I can’t tell what it’s actually about. But in any case, the correct font for coding is Cascadia Code. I don’t know why more Linux people don’t use it. Just because it’s from Microsoft? https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code
- maybebyte 1y ago
  The website is still up, it just loads slowly due to the increased viewership. Never had this much traffic before.
- Iwan-Zotow 1y ago
  Second there
spiralcoaster 1y ago
Alternative title: A long winded technical deep dive into how I make my personal font preference appear to be an objective decision.
- reidrac 1y ago
  Also, how is not having support for font ligatures a feature? Can't you just not use them if they are available? May be worded differently, like: it doesn't support ligatures, but it doesn't affect me because I don't use them.
- 7bit 1y ago
  Agree
sevg 1y ago
I’ve been loving MonoLisa. I previously used Fira Mono and then JetBrains Mono, each for a few years. All good fonts! https://www.monolisa.dev/ https://www.monolisa.dev/
- esafak 1y ago
  You can't beat that name!
- bityard 1y ago
  I had a nice little chuckle when reading the intro paragraph: > As software developers, we always strive for better tools but rarely consider a font as such. We must travel in different circles, it feels to me like half the developers on HN, blogs, and social media are WAY more concerned with the aesthetic of their development environment than actually getting any real work done with it!
AndriyKunitsyn 1y ago
"Mirror image glyphs occur when flipping one character creates another" About a half of the article is about these "mirror image glyphs". Why would they be a problem for the proclaimed purpose of character distinction? Has anyone ever mixed up "b" and "q"?
- maybebyte 1y ago
  This is a fair question/critique. As I understand it, this is a particular consideration for coders and readers with dyslexia, as they flip the letters. The thought process is that by making the characters distinct, it reduces this problem. I learned about mirror glyphs through a document linked in the Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm (APCA) website. For context, APCA is the system that aims to supplant current color calculation methods in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). https://apcacontrast.com/ https://apcacontrast.com/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338149302_Evaluating_Fonts_Font_Family_Selection_for_Accessibility_Display_Readability https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338149302_Evaluatin...
- Jaxan 1y ago
  Only when reading books to my children and we sit on the ground and the book is upside down for me :-). When programming, not once. The real reason it’s important is that for some the glyphs are too much alike and can be confused. The brain may rotate of flips things sometimes.
jkmcf 1y ago
Fira Code uses the empty set character (∅) for zero. This mistake cost me a correct answer on a math test in 12th grade because I made the wrong slash. Either that, or I made the correct slash and my teacher interpreted it incorrectly!
- tripflag 1y ago
  it's also inconvenient for Norwegians and Danes, since Ø is part of our alphabet. Slightly jealous of Sweden since they write it like Ö instead... Either way, big fan of dotted zeros for that reason.
- eviks 1y ago
  Yeah, dot in the middle is the best option, also better aligns with the whole circular concept of the glyph as opposed to the straight slash line
genshii 1y ago
I use Atkinson Hyperlegible for my blog[1]. Really happy to see the new version adds variable weight. That was the main thing I didn't like about the original version. [1] https://adamhl.dev https://adamhl.dev
queuebert 1y ago
Over my embarrassingly long time of coding, I've gone through all of these fonts and more (VT100 anyone?) and eventually traded the sans-serif fixed-width fonts for ones with serifs, as it feels less tiring at the end of long days. For the last few years, I've used Monaspace [1] variants, especially Xenon, and enjoyed them immensely. 1. https://monaspace.githubnext.com/ https://monaspace.githubnext.com/
wentin 1y ago
This font was just added to codingfont a few minutes ago! https://www.codingfont.com/AtkinsonHyperlegibleMono https://www.codingfont.com/AtkinsonHyperlegibleMono you can compare it side by side to your other favorite coding font to see which one is better looking in a code editor! You may also play the blindfold game to see if it will TRULY wins against all others in a blind test on codingfont.com
Brajeshwar 1y ago
I moved to "Atkinson Hyperlegible" for all of my Note-taking/Reading, Markdown Editing, etc. And recently upgraded to "Atkinson Hyperlegible Next" beating my choices of iA Writer’s Fonts. We are spoiled for choice and they are all beautiful and super readable and comfortable. Unfortunately, I found "Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono" (IDE/Terminal) to be a tad stunted for my liking. I wear glasses but not that bad and I like to use my computer without glasses. I personally like "Monaco" with a tad larger font-size. The other reason I try to stick to more common fonts and pick one of the better of them is to be able to use any IDE (helping/discussing with team members) and not feeling uncomfortable without "my favorite font." Again, very personal, but I tried "Atkinson Hyperlegible" for the website for about a month or so and I found it to be neither modern, nor professional nor vintage/classic but more like the website warming up to the reader/visiter, “Hey, are you OK? Finding it hard to read, I'm going to make some scientific fixes to help you read!”
- amir734jj 1y ago
  Me too. I can't use anything other than Monaco.
bogeholm 1y ago
Nice! Available on Homebrew: https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/font-atkinson-hyperlegible#default https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/font-atkinson-hyperlegible#def...
eigenvalue 1y ago
My favorite of these programmer fonts is PragmataPro, which I bought around 5 years ago. I like how it’s denser while still being easy to read. Only problem is that it doesn’t have all the nerd font glyphs so it can’t handle the nice oh-my-zsh themes well, like the powerline-10k theme. I still use it despite that though.
- lycopodiopsida 1y ago
  Same here, PragmataPro stopped me from switching fonts. Maybe because it was so expensive ;) It just has a lot of attention to detail and polish. I was using IBM Plex Mono and Iosevka before.
- Arubis 1y ago
  Hard agree; I paid for the full desktop license and stopped thinking about my programming font choices.
lcnmrn 1y ago
I wonder how it compares to Monolisa. https://www.monolisa.dev/ https://www.monolisa.dev/
elric 1y ago
> Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono lacks programming ligature support. Good. That's a feature, not a bug. I want -> to render as a dash and a greater than sign. Not an arrow. I can't even articulate why, other than a deep seated distrust of magic.
- CalChris 1y ago
  wezterm gives you the option to ligature or not to ligature. config.harfbuzz_features = { 'calt=0', 'clig=0', 'liga=0' }
- eviks 1y ago
  Nothing stops you from simply not enabling that font feature, user config is also not a bug
  - elric 1y ago
    Configurable fonts are a thing? Never configured a font beyond size/weight/colour. Intetesting.
    - 0xAFFFF 1y ago
      Yep, modern fonts have features that can be enabled or disabled, depending on client support. IDEs typically allow to enable/disable ligatures and you also can control font features with CSS (see: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-feature-settings https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-featur...)
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    How? Which editors on which OS's provide a toggle for that?
    - dismalaf 1y ago
      Dunno about toggle in an editor but fancy terminals have config flags for stuff like that (Kitty, Wezterm, Ghostty, etc...). And then you run Vim or Emacs in said terminal...
tiffanyh 1y ago
The difficulty I have with many so-called legible fonts is that they’re often not very readable. Legibility refers to how easily individual characters can be identified. But good readability depends on how easily your brain can recognize whole words—through pattern recognition of word shapes. When characters are too similar in shape and size, it becomes harder to distinguish the unique shape of each word, which reduces readability (which often happens with these highly legible fonts) — even if each individual letter is technically more clear.
- maybebyte 1y ago
  Interesting distinction there. I didn't know that was the difference between legibility and readability. I'd really like to hear more about this. Do you have experience with fonts that strike a better balance, or know of reading material that discusses this subject in more detail?
  - tiffanyh 1y ago
    This is a complex topic. For example, if you grew up in an English-speaking country, your computer likely defaulted to Arial or Helvetica as its sans-serif font. Over time, your brain became familiar with how words looked in those typefaces—their proportions and shapes. Because fonts like Inter and SF share similar proportions, your brain finds them easier to process, which makes them feel more readable.
    - saltcured 1y ago
      I spent so many years reading the 6x13 "fixed" font in XTerm, starting with CRTs and moving over to LCDs. I don't think anything is more readable to me. It hit the sweet spot of being condensed enough for easy reading but still with highly legible individual characters too. I have always wished someone could have made a scalable version to bring it into the future of high resolution displays.
      - mfro 1y ago
        You might enjoy terminus: https://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ https://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ https://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/ https://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/
LexiMax 1y ago
Since we're sharing our monospace fonts of choice, I use mononoki. My vision isn't great, and this is the font I've found that allows me to pack the most on my screen while still remaining readable. https://github.com/madmalik/mononoki https://github.com/madmalik/mononoki That said, the differences between 0 and 8, while better than my previous favorites, still aren't as stark as I'd like them to be.
mcswell 1y ago
Sans serifs...except when the serifs help distinguish 1 from l and from I, etc. Why not use a monospaced serif font in the first place? I get that they don't seem to be common, but maybe they should be.
- kqr 1y ago
  I agree. I'm a big fan of Luxi Mono, but I avoid it when publishing stuff because others seem to dislike serifs.
  - WCSTombs 1y ago
    Luxi Mono is great. Do you have an opinion on Go Mono [1]? It's by the same creators as the Luxi fonts (Bigelow & Holmes) and very similar to Luxi Mono but fixes some legibility issues. Moreover, it's freely licensed. [1] https://go.dev/blog/go-fonts https://go.dev/blog/go-fonts
    - kqr 1y ago
      Did not know about it but I like it!
- WCSTombs 1y ago
  I think it's because traditionally computer screens have pretty low DPI, and serifs can be really tricky to render well at low DPI. In print, that's not an issue, and serif fonts really shine. On high-DPI screens, like the one I'm currently using, serif monospace fonts can also look really good. For example, I'm typing in Latin Modern Mono (based on TeX's default typewriter font) in this text box.
alexeiz 1y ago
Coming from Commit Mono, Atkinson looks a bit unusual. But I think I can get used to it. I think the comparison to Fira Code is valid, because in the terminal Atkinson looks almost like Fira Mono, but better. Since I usually sit a meter away from the screen, I can appreciate the extra legibility of this font. Also, it's great that it's available as a Nerd variant. It makes it super easy to install on Linux with Embellish.
bronlund 1y ago
To me it seems that Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono has really bad kerning. I think I'll stick to JetBrains Mono for the time being.
fxtentacle 1y ago
It seems I'm the only person who likes fonts that deliberately exaggerate their edges to better align with a pixel grid. All of these font comparisons always compare pretty smooth and round fonts to each other. Apart from minor details, the comparisons look the same. But I actually like this design most: https://hajo.me/images/HajoCode16px_hr.png https://hajo.me/images/HajoCode16px_hr.png On a 9x16 pixel grid, that'll have really sharp contrasts, just like good old Windows 98 before subpixel antialiasing.
KTibow 1y ago
Thing is Atkinson Hyperlegible is "what if we made a non-monospace font with monospace like, distinct characters?" so the Mono version doesn't have much of a point. For text or code, it looks worse to me than the alternatives.
vouaobrasil 1y ago
What I have found with these fonts (and I have tried them all) is that one isn't really much better than an another, but instead I have to switch between them (and others) because eventually I get sick of every single one of them.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  > because eventually I get sick of every single one of them. Can I ask why?
  - vouaobrasil 1y ago
    I don't know. I like all the fonts, they're good. But looking at them for long periods of time makes me tired of looking at them and I just need to switch. You might as well ask me why I get tired of a certain food if I eat it too often.
    - bayindirh 1y ago
      Oh, OK. I asked, because sometimes people doesn't like a certain aspect of a font and can't stand it, and need to switch. Also, I'm also the exact opposite of you. I can use a font I like for a decade without getting tired of it. Same for a good color scheme for my terminals / IDE. So it was a genuine curiosity of me. Sorry if it sounded rude or accusatory or similar.
      - vouaobrasil 1y ago
        Oh no, I didn't consider it rude at all! It's quite interesting to find someone who can use the same one over and over....brains are weird eh?
        bayindirh 1y ago
        >...brains are weird eh? Yeah, certainly. > It's quite interesting to find someone who can use the same one over and over. I like to solve some problems once, and once I solve them sufficiently, I don't prefer to touch them, so I can focus on other things. It's not that I don't look for better solutions, but I don't actively seek them. Same is true for tools. I prefer to master a single tool over the years to jump from tool to tool.
paradox460 1y ago
Would love to see iosevka join this comparison
asadotzler 1y ago
Fira fonts, another Mozilla contribution to the world. We had these designed for Firefox OS (in concert with Telefónica.) Nice to see some of that effort endures, even if only in type.
arh68 1y ago
Well, now I'm confused. > Fira Code uses uniform length for +, =, and -. - and _ share similar length. The /\ characters join together and render smaller compared to the other fonts. This "joining" is a ligatures thing, I'm almost certain, at least for `<>`. I can't for the life of me get anything on macOS to render `/\` as joined, though. Stumped. I've no preference either way, it's just weird to see a familiar font rendered so strangely. Maybe it's a Windows font rendering thing ? A very fair comparison, though I'd argue legibility isn't always worthwhile; the MICR (?) fonts on checks are quite legible (perhaps machine-legible) but too weird to use. also, TIL IntelliJ bundles Fira Code for quite some time now
- maybebyte 1y ago
  Interesting to see the font rendering differences crop up, I haven't tested on anything except Linux. For context, I wrote a hacky shell script that uses Harfbuzz and ImageMagick to generate the comparison images in a Fedora 41 virtual machine. It's possible that something in that software stack causes the characters to render differently.
outlore 1y ago
any iosevka lovers out there? keep coming back to it even after trying Atkinson, Berkeley Mono, Jetbrains Mono...
c-hendricks 1y ago
Heads up all the images are squished on mobile.
- maybebyte 1y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. I have a couple of questions: - What do you mean by squished? - What device and browser are you using? - Are all images affected or just certain ones? A screenshot would help a lot if possible.
  - dcre 1y ago
    In Safari only (noticed on iOS but reproducible in desktop Safari with responsive design mode) the images appear to be keeping their height constant when they scale down their width. Changing "height: fit-content" to "height: auto" seems to fix it. https://imgur.com/a/TENOrZh https://imgur.com/a/TENOrZh
    - maybebyte 1y ago
      Ah, that does indeed appear squished! I'm glad someone said something. Thank you for following up with the additional information. It should be fixed now.
earksiinni 1y ago
You can pry PragmataPro from my cold dead hands.
gantengx 1y ago
For the monospace font I still revert back to DejaVu Sans Mono/Menlo. Somehow other fonts just doesn't click and feels a bit off
nitinreddy88 1y ago
I tried many fonts over the years but nothing comes close to https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono
- Terretta 1y ago
  I still prefer Andale Mono. Here's an interesting take on the two: https://neil.computer/notes/berkeley-mono-december-update/ https://neil.computer/notes/berkeley-mono-december-update/ See if you can figure why I linked this one. --- More about Andalé: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalé_Mono https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalé_Mono This conversation may still be going on 20 years from now: https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200602/monospace_fonts_compared.html https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200602/monospace_fonts_compar... Nice we have more choice since this capture in 2006: https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/?topic=2499.0 https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/?topic=2499.0
voidUpdate 1y ago
For some reason, the Atkinson 8 looks really horrible to me, the bottom half being a flat oval just looks wrong. Ive been using Jetbrains Mono in my IDEs for a while now and I love it =)
7bit 1y ago
I read your post, but I'm like, who cares?! The differences are negligible and I'm convinced the article creates a problem out of thin air, proposes a subjective solution with arguments originating in a personal preference.
tmtvl 1y ago
IBM Plex has CJK variants. As do Adobe's Source and Google's Noto. As I need those variants from time to time I'm not interested in fonts that don't have them.
mfro 1y ago
Thanks to this thread I am now using Segoe UI for my IDE.
- CrimsonCape 1y ago
  I don't know if you are being facetious, but I switched to Segoe UI and never looked back. Browsing codingfont.com is a headache. I can't unsee the amount of wasted space that comes with monospaced fonts. My brain thinks these fonts are bizarre. Not only that, the wildly different antialiasing schemes from windows to mac to browser would trigger double-bizarre-ness since I would never be looking at exactly the same antialiased text. When I set Segoe UI for the first time, I instantly knew I could stop experimenting. I am not being facetious.
  - mfro 1y ago
    I am entirely serious as well . I have always wondered what the propo font evangelizers really saw, so I gave it a go after trying (and finding problems with) 6 different fonts in this thread. It’s a game changer for readability. My only gripe is the parentheses, they are a bit hard to see without mono spacing. I also have to switch between different font rendering scenarios daily, it’s such a pain. If I could use vscode exclusively all would be well, but I’m stuck with windows font rendering in Rider usually. Segoe is one of the few fonts that looks great.
arunc 1y ago
Thanks. I'm happy with Iosevka. Wonder why it doesn't get the popularity it deserves.
egberts1 1y ago
Am I the only one who prefer their sevens (7) with an "une barre de 7" (or sometimes "une traverse du 7"). English for "crossbar" or "a crossbar stroke".

258 points by maybebyte 1y ago

For those who just want to have one nice reliable monospace font and move onto other concerns in life, there is Hack: https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/ https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/

zettabomb 1y ago
Somehow this just seems like throwing a fourth choice into the mix, rather than simplifying anything.

maybebyte 1y ago

After redesigning my website to use Atkinson Hyperlegible fonts, I switched my terminal and code editor to the monospace variant to properly test it. After a month of testing and positive experiences, I felt motivated to investigate further and write an article comparing Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono to JetBrains Mono and Fira Code. The visual comparisons use examples from an accessibility paper on homoglyphs and mirror glyphs. I chose JetBrains Mono and Fira Code as a baseline, since many developers use these fonts and find them familiar. While Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono excels at character distinction, nothing is perfect. I detail trade-offs in the "Caveats" section, below the installation instructions. I'm curious to hear others' experiences and thoughts. I'm fascinated by what role font choice plays in legibility and accessibility, but the research is relatively sparse in this area.

esafak 1y ago
I would link to the downloads in the opening paragraph. My impression is that while legible it is too fat. You'll notice that Fira Code and JetBrains Mono are similarly wide -- and narrower than Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono.
- maybebyte 1y ago
  Sure, I'll add it in. I'll post the links here as well just in case: https://github.com/googlefonts/atkinson-hyperlegible-next-mono https://github.com/googlefonts/atkinson-hyperlegible-next-mo... I'd recommend getting it from there rather than the Braille Institute's website since they require an email and EULA, but here's the other download link anyway. https://www.brailleinstitute.org/freefont/ https://www.brailleinstitute.org/freefont/ Also, Nerd Fonts added Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono in their v3.4.0 release. https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/tag/v3.4.0 https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/tag/v3.4.0 With Nerd Fonts, I'd recommend downloading both and setting up a fallback system through fontconfig though. Unfortunately, some versions (Nerd Fonts, official download) are still missing the backtick/grave glyph. https://github.com/googlefonts/atkinson-hyperlegible-next-mono/issues/3 https://github.com/googlefonts/atkinson-hyperlegible-next-mo...
- tracker1 1y ago
  I'm pretty much there with you. I tend to use Fira Code for the improved visibility, but really would prefer Consolas/Inconsolata, but there are a few character variations that I don't like as much and it's slightly harder to read (for me). I also have come to rely on the Nerd Fonts enhancements with my terminal prompt (Starship).
alienbaby 1y ago
I was hoping to see some comparisons of blocks of English text, and blocks of program code text, rather than just character by character. That would help me understand how it feels to read in arbitrary blocks, as well as appreciate specific design characteristics.
- jasperry 1y ago
  I agree. This is a very enlightening discussion of individual glyph features that affect readability. But the thing that hit me immediately is the difference in how expanded or condensed these fonts feel. Even though in the examples, the text width of JetBrains and Fira is identical, JetBrains "looks" condensed to the point of being harder to read. But I feel like Atkinson goes too far the other direction and is too expanded. When I read it, I feel like I'm tripping over the empty space between the characters, or I have to move my eyes too much to read one word.
- maybebyte 1y ago
  This is good feedback, thank you. When I wrote the article, I erred on the side of too few comparison images rather than too many. What would you recommend for comparison blocks? "The five boxing wizards jump quickly" and maybe a fizzbuzz? For what it's worth, I generated the comparison images with Harfbuzz and ImageMagick, so in theory I could publish the script and then anyone could make their own comparison images. Fair warning: it's a quick and dirty shell script, written only to get the job done.
- wentin 1y ago
  This might be of interest for you: https://www.codingfont.com/ https://www.codingfont.com/ I made it to select the perfect coding font. i will update it to include the Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono soon!
  - maybebyte 1y ago
    Hey, I'm a fan of your work. My font before this was Victor Mono, and I actually found it through your website. Do you publish the source code anywhere? I'd be interested to take a closer look at it.
ninetyninenine 1y ago
Character distinction isn't that important when reading english mainly because context automatically repairs any s1m1l4r1t1es b3tw33n w0rd5. Even numbers can be used the replace letters and it only slows down reading slightly. Leetspeak is only a worst case example. For example for b0Ok 0 and O causes virtually no pause.
- kybernetikos 1y ago
  But that's the exact reason why it's problematic in contexts where the exact character is important in a way not clear from context. Atkinson Hyperlegible is my favourite for reading passwords or urls with codes in them etc.
  - ninetyninenine 1y ago
    But how often is this needed in daily life? Why not just pick something that’s aesthetically pleasing based on personal preference rather than legibility because reading passwords doesn’t happen often at all imo? Additionally the legibility metric used by the site isn’t even quantitative. It’s qualitative and opinionated so it’s not like there was an objective measure that says Atkinson is in actuality more hyperlegible… the hyper legibility is an opinion.

evertheylen 1y ago

Why don't we embrace proportional (i.e. not monospace) fonts more for coding? IMHO, they are a big step up when it comes to legibility. I personally switched after I noticed reading stuff in the sidebar (which is usually in a proportional font) felt more comfortable than reading code. You can't use it for a terminal of course, and occasionally I find comments relying on monospace alignment. Other than that I see no downside to proportional fonts. I use Input, which gives more room to special characters and is pretty nice overall: https://input.djr.com/ https://input.djr.com/

esafak 1y ago
Isn't it the opposite; use proportional fonts in the terminal but not code, where alignment matters? I am giving it a try, and I like it on first impression.
- fainpul 1y ago
  Terminals usually don't support proportional fonts.
- Jaxan 1y ago
  Alignment in the terminal matters. Even something like ls uses columns.
- babypuncher 1y ago
  Tons and tons of terminal apps are written assuming a monospace font. Alignment matters and you don't have much control over that. In code, you can always choose a style that discourages spatial alignment.
hollerith 1y ago
Which IDE or editor are you viewing this proportional font in? A proportional font in Emacs doesn't look right to my eye. My guess is that there are subtleties in the spacing between letters when a browser or a book publisher renders the text that Emacs does not know about.
- 1y ago

bonthron 1y ago

Maybe an acquired taste, but I'm fond of Intel One Mono ... https://github.com/intel/intel-one-mono https://github.com/intel/intel-one-mono designed for low-vision developers.

ruuda 1y ago
I switched to it after more than 12 years with Consolas, expecting to quickly get bored of it, like every other time I had a brief affair with a different font. But One Mono stuck!
bayindirh 1y ago
Looks like a great, functional font. I'm also a fan of Adobe Source Code Mono, but the look and feel of Berkeley Mono just wiped the floor of all these professional and well designed fonts. IBM's Plex Mono also a great contender for a "professional" programming font.

pmarreck 1y ago

My current favorite code font is Berkeley Mono https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono It's not free, but I love it. You can customize some variations too (like how zeroes look; I use the "invisible slash" look) and it has some support for terminal symbols and programming ligatures used by terminal tweaks like Powerline, etc.

Void_ 1y ago
I love this font! It's very well worth the price.
bayindirh 1y ago
Yeah, where there's Berkeley Mono, there are no alternatives. I love that font, and use it everywhere.
braum 1y ago
yep! I just got it the other day. I upgraded to get the variants but I quickly settled on the Regular which is included with $75 Dev license. It's amazing even using it for non-code like in Obsidian.
nitinreddy88 1y ago
Same here. No other font comes close to it in terms of readability. I really don't care about what each font claims about in terms of achiveness. As long as it's not pleasing to me, its not worth for me.
aquir 1y ago
Come here to say the same...expensive but worths it

pmarreck 1y ago

It just occurred to me that if HN supported, say, 4-bit mono PNG images with transparency in comments, that would help here without impacting bandwidth too much and might add a classy element

khaledh 1y ago

This is of course subjective, but I still find JetBrains Mono to be much more pleasant to read (when it comes to code) than any other mono font out there.

speedgoose 1y ago
Yes, same for me. I tried many fonts over the years and I settled on Comic Code and JetBrains Mono. I use one for code editors and the other for CLIs.
- tommica 1y ago
  I use comic code in my editors and in cli - it's just fun and very readable
RyanHamilton 1y ago
I also found this and actually made it the default for an application I author with a few thousand users. Well it turned out jetbrains mono didn't support chinese characters so I broke my app for a proportion of my user base. I had to revert it. Also it can add seconds to load time. Just a warning as I think a few people on hn will make tools for others. I still set it as my own font.
- microflash 1y ago
  You can always subset different fonts for different languages. This does two things: reduces the file size and allows some agents, such as your browser, load specific font depending on unicode range. I wrote a post about subsetting, in context of my personal site, here: https://www.naiyerasif.com/post/2024/06/27/how-i-subset-fonts-for-my-site/ https://www.naiyerasif.com/post/2024/06/27/how-i-subset-font...

DrBazza 1y ago

I moved on from these fonts quite some time ago and just use https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka everywhere. It's ideal for 'wordy' languages such as C++ where a typical line length can often go over 150 characters, and then you don't have to scroll sideways.

ThisNameIsTaken 1y ago
Adding to the list of 'this is what I am using', I have switched both terminal and code editor to Maple Mono[1]. Which, looking at TFA, seems to be somewhat similar in spirit as Atkinson Hyperlegible, although I haven't used that. Maple has many ligatures, I personally like the hypervisible [TODO]. Overall I find it very legible, even on small sizes, and pleasing also for writing e.g. in Markdown. [1] https://font.subf.dev/en/ https://font.subf.dev/en/ / https://github.com/subframe7536/maple-font https://github.com/subframe7536/maple-font
- christophilus 1y ago
  I don’t like glyphs, but that normie mode looks excellent. I don’t know how I missed maple when doing my font search recently. Thanks for the link.
- specialist 1y ago
  Those are some sexy glyphs (gaps in curly punctuation). The ligatures for keywords is clever. I appreciate those niceties. Like rendering small gaps in large numbers, eg '1000000' looks like '1 000 000'. IIRC Berkeley or Monospaced have a few neat tricks like that.
bitwize 1y ago
Iosevka is the most terminaly of the modern vector programming fonts, outside of perhaps Terminus. I set my Emacs to use it, as I haven't been able to find a font that comes anywhere near as comfortable.

forrestthewoods 1y ago

Website is down so I can’t tell what it’s actually about. But in any case, the correct font for coding is Cascadia Code. I don’t know why more Linux people don’t use it. Just because it’s from Microsoft? https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code

maybebyte 1y ago
The website is still up, it just loads slowly due to the increased viewership. Never had this much traffic before.
Iwan-Zotow 1y ago
Second there

spiralcoaster 1y ago

Alternative title: A long winded technical deep dive into how I make my personal font preference appear to be an objective decision.

reidrac 1y ago
Also, how is not having support for font ligatures a feature? Can't you just not use them if they are available? May be worded differently, like: it doesn't support ligatures, but it doesn't affect me because I don't use them.
7bit 1y ago
Agree

sevg 1y ago

I’ve been loving MonoLisa. I previously used Fira Mono and then JetBrains Mono, each for a few years. All good fonts! https://www.monolisa.dev/ https://www.monolisa.dev/

esafak 1y ago
You can't beat that name!
bityard 1y ago
I had a nice little chuckle when reading the intro paragraph: > As software developers, we always strive for better tools but rarely consider a font as such. We must travel in different circles, it feels to me like half the developers on HN, blogs, and social media are WAY more concerned with the aesthetic of their development environment than actually getting any real work done with it!

AndriyKunitsyn 1y ago

"Mirror image glyphs occur when flipping one character creates another" About a half of the article is about these "mirror image glyphs". Why would they be a problem for the proclaimed purpose of character distinction? Has anyone ever mixed up "b" and "q"?

maybebyte 1y ago
This is a fair question/critique. As I understand it, this is a particular consideration for coders and readers with dyslexia, as they flip the letters. The thought process is that by making the characters distinct, it reduces this problem. I learned about mirror glyphs through a document linked in the Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm (APCA) website. For context, APCA is the system that aims to supplant current color calculation methods in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). https://apcacontrast.com/ https://apcacontrast.com/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338149302_Evaluating_Fonts_Font_Family_Selection_for_Accessibility_Display_Readability https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338149302_Evaluatin...
Jaxan 1y ago
Only when reading books to my children and we sit on the ground and the book is upside down for me :-). When programming, not once. The real reason it’s important is that for some the glyphs are too much alike and can be confused. The brain may rotate of flips things sometimes.

jkmcf 1y ago

Fira Code uses the empty set character (∅) for zero. This mistake cost me a correct answer on a math test in 12th grade because I made the wrong slash. Either that, or I made the correct slash and my teacher interpreted it incorrectly!

tripflag 1y ago
it's also inconvenient for Norwegians and Danes, since Ø is part of our alphabet. Slightly jealous of Sweden since they write it like Ö instead... Either way, big fan of dotted zeros for that reason.
eviks 1y ago
Yeah, dot in the middle is the best option, also better aligns with the whole circular concept of the glyph as opposed to the straight slash line

genshii 1y ago

I use Atkinson Hyperlegible for my blog[1]. Really happy to see the new version adds variable weight. That was the main thing I didn't like about the original version. [1] https://adamhl.dev https://adamhl.dev

queuebert 1y ago

Over my embarrassingly long time of coding, I've gone through all of these fonts and more (VT100 anyone?) and eventually traded the sans-serif fixed-width fonts for ones with serifs, as it feels less tiring at the end of long days. For the last few years, I've used Monaspace [1] variants, especially Xenon, and enjoyed them immensely. 1. https://monaspace.githubnext.com/ https://monaspace.githubnext.com/

wentin 1y ago

This font was just added to codingfont a few minutes ago! https://www.codingfont.com/AtkinsonHyperlegibleMono https://www.codingfont.com/AtkinsonHyperlegibleMono you can compare it side by side to your other favorite coding font to see which one is better looking in a code editor! You may also play the blindfold game to see if it will TRULY wins against all others in a blind test on codingfont.com

Brajeshwar 1y ago

I moved to "Atkinson Hyperlegible" for all of my Note-taking/Reading, Markdown Editing, etc. And recently upgraded to "Atkinson Hyperlegible Next" beating my choices of iA Writer’s Fonts. We are spoiled for choice and they are all beautiful and super readable and comfortable. Unfortunately, I found "Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono" (IDE/Terminal) to be a tad stunted for my liking. I wear glasses but not that bad and I like to use my computer without glasses. I personally like "Monaco" with a tad larger font-size. The other reason I try to stick to more common fonts and pick one of the better of them is to be able to use any IDE (helping/discussing with team members) and not feeling uncomfortable without "my favorite font." Again, very personal, but I tried "Atkinson Hyperlegible" for the website for about a month or so and I found it to be neither modern, nor professional nor vintage/classic but more like the website warming up to the reader/visiter, “Hey, are you OK? Finding it hard to read, I'm going to make some scientific fixes to help you read!”

amir734jj 1y ago
Me too. I can't use anything other than Monaco.

bogeholm 1y ago

Nice! Available on Homebrew: https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/font-atkinson-hyperlegible#default https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/font-atkinson-hyperlegible#def...

eigenvalue 1y ago

My favorite of these programmer fonts is PragmataPro, which I bought around 5 years ago. I like how it’s denser while still being easy to read. Only problem is that it doesn’t have all the nerd font glyphs so it can’t handle the nice oh-my-zsh themes well, like the powerline-10k theme. I still use it despite that though.

lycopodiopsida 1y ago
Same here, PragmataPro stopped me from switching fonts. Maybe because it was so expensive ;) It just has a lot of attention to detail and polish. I was using IBM Plex Mono and Iosevka before.
Arubis 1y ago
Hard agree; I paid for the full desktop license and stopped thinking about my programming font choices.

lcnmrn 1y ago

I wonder how it compares to Monolisa. https://www.monolisa.dev/ https://www.monolisa.dev/

elric 1y ago

> Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono lacks programming ligature support. Good. That's a feature, not a bug. I want -> to render as a dash and a greater than sign. Not an arrow. I can't even articulate why, other than a deep seated distrust of magic.

CalChris 1y ago
wezterm gives you the option to ligature or not to ligature. config.harfbuzz_features = { 'calt=0', 'clig=0', 'liga=0' }
eviks 1y ago
Nothing stops you from simply not enabling that font feature, user config is also not a bug
- elric 1y ago
  Configurable fonts are a thing? Never configured a font beyond size/weight/colour. Intetesting.
  - 0xAFFFF 1y ago
    Yep, modern fonts have features that can be enabled or disabled, depending on client support. IDEs typically allow to enable/disable ligatures and you also can control font features with CSS (see: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-feature-settings https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-featur...)
- crazygringo 1y ago
  How? Which editors on which OS's provide a toggle for that?
  - dismalaf 1y ago
    Dunno about toggle in an editor but fancy terminals have config flags for stuff like that (Kitty, Wezterm, Ghostty, etc...). And then you run Vim or Emacs in said terminal...

tiffanyh 1y ago

The difficulty I have with many so-called legible fonts is that they’re often not very readable. Legibility refers to how easily individual characters can be identified. But good readability depends on how easily your brain can recognize whole words—through pattern recognition of word shapes. When characters are too similar in shape and size, it becomes harder to distinguish the unique shape of each word, which reduces readability (which often happens with these highly legible fonts) — even if each individual letter is technically more clear.

maybebyte 1y ago
Interesting distinction there. I didn't know that was the difference between legibility and readability. I'd really like to hear more about this. Do you have experience with fonts that strike a better balance, or know of reading material that discusses this subject in more detail?
- tiffanyh 1y ago
  This is a complex topic. For example, if you grew up in an English-speaking country, your computer likely defaulted to Arial or Helvetica as its sans-serif font. Over time, your brain became familiar with how words looked in those typefaces—their proportions and shapes. Because fonts like Inter and SF share similar proportions, your brain finds them easier to process, which makes them feel more readable.
  - saltcured 1y ago
    I spent so many years reading the 6x13 "fixed" font in XTerm, starting with CRTs and moving over to LCDs. I don't think anything is more readable to me. It hit the sweet spot of being condensed enough for easy reading but still with highly legible individual characters too. I have always wished someone could have made a scalable version to bring it into the future of high resolution displays.
    - mfro 1y ago
      You might enjoy terminus: https://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ https://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ https://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/ https://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/

LexiMax 1y ago

Since we're sharing our monospace fonts of choice, I use mononoki. My vision isn't great, and this is the font I've found that allows me to pack the most on my screen while still remaining readable. https://github.com/madmalik/mononoki https://github.com/madmalik/mononoki That said, the differences between 0 and 8, while better than my previous favorites, still aren't as stark as I'd like them to be.

mcswell 1y ago

Sans serifs...except when the serifs help distinguish 1 from l and from I, etc. Why not use a monospaced serif font in the first place? I get that they don't seem to be common, but maybe they should be.

kqr 1y ago
I agree. I'm a big fan of Luxi Mono, but I avoid it when publishing stuff because others seem to dislike serifs.
- WCSTombs 1y ago
  Luxi Mono is great. Do you have an opinion on Go Mono [1]? It's by the same creators as the Luxi fonts (Bigelow & Holmes) and very similar to Luxi Mono but fixes some legibility issues. Moreover, it's freely licensed. [1] https://go.dev/blog/go-fonts https://go.dev/blog/go-fonts
  - kqr 1y ago
    Did not know about it but I like it!
WCSTombs 1y ago
I think it's because traditionally computer screens have pretty low DPI, and serifs can be really tricky to render well at low DPI. In print, that's not an issue, and serif fonts really shine. On high-DPI screens, like the one I'm currently using, serif monospace fonts can also look really good. For example, I'm typing in Latin Modern Mono (based on TeX's default typewriter font) in this text box.

alexeiz 1y ago

Coming from Commit Mono, Atkinson looks a bit unusual. But I think I can get used to it. I think the comparison to Fira Code is valid, because in the terminal Atkinson looks almost like Fira Mono, but better. Since I usually sit a meter away from the screen, I can appreciate the extra legibility of this font. Also, it's great that it's available as a Nerd variant. It makes it super easy to install on Linux with Embellish.

bronlund 1y ago

To me it seems that Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono has really bad kerning. I think I'll stick to JetBrains Mono for the time being.

fxtentacle 1y ago

It seems I'm the only person who likes fonts that deliberately exaggerate their edges to better align with a pixel grid. All of these font comparisons always compare pretty smooth and round fonts to each other. Apart from minor details, the comparisons look the same. But I actually like this design most: https://hajo.me/images/HajoCode16px_hr.png https://hajo.me/images/HajoCode16px_hr.png On a 9x16 pixel grid, that'll have really sharp contrasts, just like good old Windows 98 before subpixel antialiasing.

KTibow 1y ago

Thing is Atkinson Hyperlegible is "what if we made a non-monospace font with monospace like, distinct characters?" so the Mono version doesn't have much of a point. For text or code, it looks worse to me than the alternatives.

vouaobrasil 1y ago

What I have found with these fonts (and I have tried them all) is that one isn't really much better than an another, but instead I have to switch between them (and others) because eventually I get sick of every single one of them.

bayindirh 1y ago
> because eventually I get sick of every single one of them. Can I ask why?
- vouaobrasil 1y ago
  I don't know. I like all the fonts, they're good. But looking at them for long periods of time makes me tired of looking at them and I just need to switch. You might as well ask me why I get tired of a certain food if I eat it too often.
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    Oh, OK. I asked, because sometimes people doesn't like a certain aspect of a font and can't stand it, and need to switch. Also, I'm also the exact opposite of you. I can use a font I like for a decade without getting tired of it. Same for a good color scheme for my terminals / IDE. So it was a genuine curiosity of me. Sorry if it sounded rude or accusatory or similar.
    - vouaobrasil 1y ago
      Oh no, I didn't consider it rude at all! It's quite interesting to find someone who can use the same one over and over....brains are weird eh?
      - bayindirh 1y ago
        >...brains are weird eh? Yeah, certainly. > It's quite interesting to find someone who can use the same one over and over. I like to solve some problems once, and once I solve them sufficiently, I don't prefer to touch them, so I can focus on other things. It's not that I don't look for better solutions, but I don't actively seek them. Same is true for tools. I prefer to master a single tool over the years to jump from tool to tool.

paradox460 1y ago

Would love to see iosevka join this comparison

asadotzler 1y ago

Fira fonts, another Mozilla contribution to the world. We had these designed for Firefox OS (in concert with Telefónica.) Nice to see some of that effort endures, even if only in type.

arh68 1y ago

Well, now I'm confused. > Fira Code uses uniform length for +, =, and -. - and _ share similar length. The /\ characters join together and render smaller compared to the other fonts. This "joining" is a ligatures thing, I'm almost certain, at least for `<>`. I can't for the life of me get anything on macOS to render `/\` as joined, though. Stumped. I've no preference either way, it's just weird to see a familiar font rendered so strangely. Maybe it's a Windows font rendering thing ? A very fair comparison, though I'd argue legibility isn't always worthwhile; the MICR (?) fonts on checks are quite legible (perhaps machine-legible) but too weird to use. also, TIL IntelliJ bundles Fira Code for quite some time now

maybebyte 1y ago
Interesting to see the font rendering differences crop up, I haven't tested on anything except Linux. For context, I wrote a hacky shell script that uses Harfbuzz and ImageMagick to generate the comparison images in a Fedora 41 virtual machine. It's possible that something in that software stack causes the characters to render differently.

outlore 1y ago

any iosevka lovers out there? keep coming back to it even after trying Atkinson, Berkeley Mono, Jetbrains Mono...

c-hendricks 1y ago

Heads up all the images are squished on mobile.

maybebyte 1y ago
Thanks for the heads up. I have a couple of questions: - What do you mean by squished? - What device and browser are you using? - Are all images affected or just certain ones? A screenshot would help a lot if possible.
- dcre 1y ago
  In Safari only (noticed on iOS but reproducible in desktop Safari with responsive design mode) the images appear to be keeping their height constant when they scale down their width. Changing "height: fit-content" to "height: auto" seems to fix it. https://imgur.com/a/TENOrZh https://imgur.com/a/TENOrZh
  - maybebyte 1y ago
    Ah, that does indeed appear squished! I'm glad someone said something. Thank you for following up with the additional information. It should be fixed now.

earksiinni 1y ago

You can pry PragmataPro from my cold dead hands.

gantengx 1y ago

For the monospace font I still revert back to DejaVu Sans Mono/Menlo. Somehow other fonts just doesn't click and feels a bit off

nitinreddy88 1y ago

I tried many fonts over the years but nothing comes close to https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono

Terretta 1y ago
I still prefer Andale Mono. Here's an interesting take on the two: https://neil.computer/notes/berkeley-mono-december-update/ https://neil.computer/notes/berkeley-mono-december-update/ See if you can figure why I linked this one. --- More about Andalé: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalé_Mono https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalé_Mono This conversation may still be going on 20 years from now: https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200602/monospace_fonts_compared.html https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200602/monospace_fonts_compar... Nice we have more choice since this capture in 2006: https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/?topic=2499.0 https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/?topic=2499.0

voidUpdate 1y ago

For some reason, the Atkinson 8 looks really horrible to me, the bottom half being a flat oval just looks wrong. Ive been using Jetbrains Mono in my IDEs for a while now and I love it =)

7bit 1y ago

I read your post, but I'm like, who cares?! The differences are negligible and I'm convinced the article creates a problem out of thin air, proposes a subjective solution with arguments originating in a personal preference.

tmtvl 1y ago

IBM Plex has CJK variants. As do Adobe's Source and Google's Noto. As I need those variants from time to time I'm not interested in fonts that don't have them.

mfro 1y ago

Thanks to this thread I am now using Segoe UI for my IDE.

CrimsonCape 1y ago
I don't know if you are being facetious, but I switched to Segoe UI and never looked back. Browsing codingfont.com is a headache. I can't unsee the amount of wasted space that comes with monospaced fonts. My brain thinks these fonts are bizarre. Not only that, the wildly different antialiasing schemes from windows to mac to browser would trigger double-bizarre-ness since I would never be looking at exactly the same antialiased text. When I set Segoe UI for the first time, I instantly knew I could stop experimenting. I am not being facetious.
- mfro 1y ago
  I am entirely serious as well . I have always wondered what the propo font evangelizers really saw, so I gave it a go after trying (and finding problems with) 6 different fonts in this thread. It’s a game changer for readability. My only gripe is the parentheses, they are a bit hard to see without mono spacing. I also have to switch between different font rendering scenarios daily, it’s such a pain. If I could use vscode exclusively all would be well, but I’m stuck with windows font rendering in Rider usually. Segoe is one of the few fonts that looks great.

arunc 1y ago

Thanks. I'm happy with Iosevka. Wonder why it doesn't get the popularity it deserves.

egberts1 1y ago

Am I the only one who prefer their sevens (7) with an "une barre de 7" (or sometimes "une traverse du 7"). English for "crossbar" or "a crossbar stroke".