Usable Fonts

A list of good open-source fonts. Not just free, but libre and with an “open source” license, like SIL Open Font License.

Yes, making a good typeface is expensive and hard. And yes, every font is usable.

• Languages and alphabets: Latin, Cyrillic, Greek. “Extended”.

• Typographic features (with OpenType): small caps, old style numerals, … If superfamily (or clan). If variants (condensed, …)

• Uses: text, UI, display, code, …

• Opinionated subset, taste, personal. Yes, I like monospaced fonts.

The list

In alphabetic order.

• Alegreya serif and Alegreya Sans. With small-caps. Cyrillic, Greek. OFL.

• Andada. Site

• Cascadia: monospaced by Microsoft. Wikipedia.

• Charis by SIL. Based on Bitstream Charter. (Download Charter.) Cyrillic. OFL.

• Cooper Hewitt: sans-serif. OFL.

• Cousine: monospaced. Also Liberation Mono. Cyrillic, Greek. Apache.

• Fira Sans and Fira Mono (or Fira Code) and FiraGO: sans-serif (with condensed) and monospaced, for Mozilla, by Erik Spiekermann et al. Similar to FF Meta. Good for UI. W, A review. Cyrillic, Greek, Math. OFL.

• Geist Sans and Mono.

• Gentium by SIL.
  
  Wikipedia. Cyrillic, Greek. OFL.

• IBM Plex Sans, Serif and Mono ★★★★: for IBM. Repo. Wikipedia. Cyrillic, Greek, Japanese, Korean. OFL.

• Inconsolata: monospaced. Git or Git, [G], [W]. OFL.

• Inter: sans-serif, for Figma, by Rasmus Andersson.
  
  Repo. Google Fonts. Cyrillic, Greek. An ode.

• JetBrains Mono: monospaced. Cyrillic, Greek

• JuliaMono: monospaced. Math.

• Lekton: monospaced

• Literata: legible serif for Google Books by TypeTogether ★★★☆. Site. Wikipedia. (Kindle has Bookerly.) Cyrillic, Greek. OFL.

• Merriweather: semi-serif. Cyrillic.

• Noto: multilanguage superfamily for Google … Wikipedia. Google Fonts. Repo. Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, … OFL.

• Overpass and Mono: for Red Hat. Wikipedia. Cyrillic

• Piazzolla: serif. Site. Cyrillic, Greek

• Public Sans: fork of Libre Franklin

• Recursive Sans & Mono: Git

• Roboto: system sans-serif for Google Android. (Apple has San Francisco.) [G]. Cyrillic, Greek.

• Source Sans, Source Serif and Source Mono: by Adobe. Cyrillic, Greek

• Spectral: for Goole Docs. Google Fonts. Cyrillic. OFL.

• STIX Two Text: serif with math. Wikipedia. Cyrillic, Greek

• Ubuntu Sans and Ubuntu Mono: system sans-serif font for Ubuntu. Wikipedia. Cyrillic, Greek

• Work Sans. OFL.

See also

• Free fonts: Font Squirrel, google-webfonts-helper, indestructible type*, The League of Movable Type, Open Font Library.

License

CC0 1.0 Universal “No Rights Reserved”