What are the best Monospace fonts with programming ligatures?

Weights:6 (Light, Regular, Retina, Medium, Semibold, Bold)

Some characters that look odd in other monospace fonts look very nice in Fira Code: @, a, lower-case-L, Q, j, and *. See More

Top Pro

Characters look really nice

Top Con

No italics

There is no italic variant as of December 6, 2021. See More

TranquilBeaivi's Experience

Very nice See More

Top Pro

Works in any editor that supports ligatures

Such as JetBrains, Visual Studio, Visual Code, and Linqpad. See More

Top Con

Lowercase 'r' looks off

The r is the only character with serifs and makes it look out of place and distracting. However, there is a 'stylistic set' that changes this behaviour (the ss01 option). See More

PatientNortia's Experience

The best. I'll never return to another font. See More

Top Pro

Has ligatures

This is particularly beneficial for those who wish to use combined letters such as "æ" and other diphthongs. But when it comes to programming, the ability to scan through your code is improved with ligatures for equality, arrow functions, and more. See More

Top Con

The '@' Symbol is asymmetric

It's a style, but it would be nice if it would wrap and not just cover the top. See More

Big Kahuna Burger's Experience

Works with my both editors. VS, VSCode. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

This font is licensed under the SIL Open Font License. See More

Top Con

Noisy serif-like style harming the text clarity

TruthfulNinurta's Experience

At least 10 years in programming and system administration, and I can definitely recommend this font as the best one for coding! See More

Top Pro

Supports Retina displays

Fira Coda supports high pixel density Retina displays. See More

Top Con

It doesn't really look nice

LivelyUllr's Experience

Not enough width, especially in uppercase See More

Top Pro

Supports retina displays

Fira Coda supports high pixel density retina displays. See More

Top Con

Listed slashed 0, but not slashed; @ is ugly

Workaholic772's Experience

Nice looking and very helpful ligatures See More

Top Pro

Has a slashed zero

New style since February 2018. See More

Top Con

Ligatures like == and === are harder to tell apart than they should be

WorthyIoMatuaKore's Experience

It's funny!!! See More

Top Pro

Good editor support

A list of supported editors and terminals can be found here. See More

Top Con

Some ligatures will never be implemented

Because FiraCode aims to be language-agnostic, character combinations that perform different actions in different languages are not implemented. One such character combination is /= that is an inequality operator in languages like Erlang and Haskell, while it means divide and assign in C. (Note: Also listed as a PRO because seeing ≠ in a C program where you're dividing and assigning could be confusing.) See More

1nu Y4sh4's Experience

not slashed, listed as slashed; ugly @. See More

Top Pro

Installs easily on Mac

Many ligature fonts on Github aren't "mac ready". This font comes pre-compiled and ready to install on Windows, Mac, and Linux. See More

Top Con

Ligatures are nice-looking but harm clarity

Even though the font combines characters into ligatures, you still need to type the normal characters, and the ligatures make that difficult in many cases. See More

ArticulateRhea's Experience

extremely serif feeling See More

Top Pro

Frequent updates

The repository is frequently updated. See More

RobustZaqar's Experience

It is obvious that this artist knows developers. Open Source license and available on GitHub. Beautiful contact sheet style infographic of features shows attention to detail. See More

Top Pro

Language-agnostic

Does not implement ligatures for character combinations that do different things in different languages. For example, a Haskell specific ligature for /= is to combine the characters into ≠ because in Haskell it means inequality, however this would be confusing in C as C treats /= as divide and assign. (Note: Also listed as a CON because this means that ligatures that some people may want will never be implemented.) See More

ResourcefulHapi's Experience

The @ symbol is ugly See More

Some coding fonts with ligatures, like Fira Code, turn != into ≠, but Hasklig does not. The reason for this is that Hasklig was designed for Haskell code, and so turns /= into ≠ instead. See More

score 108 · Answer 2

Hasklig

Top Pro

Great for Haskell

Top Con

Lacks !=

DedicatedNyame's Experience

I like its roundness and smoothness .. comfortable for my eyes really .. See More

Specs

Weights:7 (Extralight, Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, Black)

There really is no other game in town if you want monospaced with ligatures. It's based on Source Code Pro, one of the best monospaced fonts for programmers to begin with. See More

Top Pro

Has a heavier appearance than Fira Code or Monoid

Top Con

Some Ligatures like -<< don't look that good.

Aurelius's Experience

Top Pro

Completely free and open source

Freely available via GitHub, therefore can be modified and improved by anyone. See More

Top Con

Has a heavier appearance than Fira Code or Monoid

PerseveringAhBolomTzacab's Experience

Hasklig is my first font with ligature that i have tried and seen then i never fill the need to try other font as i am very pleased with hasklig See More

Top Pro

Has many variants such as Italic, Bold Italic, Light, Semibold, etc., etc

Top Con

No support for many editors, including emacs

Unfortunately, not supporting emacs is the number one reason I don't use this font all the time. See More

Top Con

Very cute but not WYSIWYG

You want to see exactly what you've typed, not have your brain have to do a little dance every time you see one of these artifacts. See More

Somehow I keep coming back to this font. Very easy on the eyes while programming, I'd recommending using the Medium version as default. See More

score 79 · Answer 3

JetBrains Mono

Top Pro

Easy to use to read

Top Con

No Slashed version/option for 0 (zero)

CuriousGonggong's Experience

Specs

Ligatures:Optional

Weights:8 (Thin, Extralight, Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, Extrabold)

Easy to read in small text size See More

Top Pro

Easy to differentiate l, I, and 1

ConsiderateKunapipi's Experience

Top Pro

Broad variety for ligature glyphs

lecho9's Experience

marvelous See More

Top Pro

Very beautiful

Top Pro

Four different weights

Top Pro

Simple forms

Free from unnecessary details. See More

Top Pro

Shape of ovals approaches rectangle

Makes vertical reading easier. See More

Top Pro

Saves a lot of screen space

Top Pro

The dotted zero looks cool

Iosevka is very clear and legible on all displays and in all sizes. See More

score 54 · Answer 4

Iosevka

Top Pro

Readable

Top Con

Not very readable at small sizes

It's very tall and narrow. See More

Specs

Zero Style:Custom

Ligatures:Custom

Weights:9 (Thin, Extralight, Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, Extrabold, Heavy)

Many of the common styles are available, including Sans Serif and Slab Serif with normal, bold, italic, and bold italic styles. See More

Top Pro

Over 2000 Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, phonetic and PowerLine glyphs

Top Con

Too narrow

Top Pro

Several styles available

Top Con

Looks bad when used as a terminal font

Top Pro

Large number of weights

This font comes in seven different weights, ranging from thin and extra-light to heavy. See More

Top Con

Fewer ligatures than other fonts

Iosevka has a nice ligation set, but it doesn't have as many ligatures as fonts like Hasklig, Monoid, or Pragmata Pro. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Iosevka is free and open source. See More

Top Pro

Easy on user's eyes

Due to it being readable on all types of displays, Iosevka isn't hard on the user's eyes. See More

Top Pro

Well-maintained

The developer is active and responds to user questions and issues. See More

Top Pro

Narrow

Narrow character width uses horizontal screen space more efficiently. See More

Top Pro

Can be customized

It offers a tool that creates a variation of the font based on your parameters. See More

Top Pro

Great customizability

There is full customization of styles and variants in Iosevka. See More

Top Pro

Also variant with tiny serifs available ("Slab")

For better reading longer texts. See More

Top Pro

Ligature characters look great

Few fonts have a good ligation feature. Ligature characters (such as æ or the German ß) are supported in Iosevka and look just as you'd expect them to. See More

Top Pro

Good CJK compatibility

Iosevka integrates CJK characters well, those being characters of the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and occasionally Vietnamese languages. See More

Top Pro

Support for Cyrillic and Greek letters

Iosevka is quite flexible in that it supports Cyrillic and Greek letters. See More

Top Pro

IPA support

IPA is a system containing the sounds of spoken language and includes speech qualities such as intonation. See More

The font is frequently updated by the author with requested glyphs/ligatures and fixes for issues reported by users. See More

score 33 · Answer 5

PragmataPro

Top Pro

Responsive author, frequent updates

Top Con

Not free

GenuineSobek's Experience

I bought it, don't regret it at all and use the font in all my IDEs, editors and terminals. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Very clear and legible

The font has been hand-hinted with legibility in mind. See More

Top Con

Very narrow

IntellectualAnanke's Experience

When it comes to software development, choosing the right font can make a significant difference to your productivity and wellbeing. PragmataPro is a condensed monospaced font that is optimised for retina screens and designed to be the ideal font for coding, maths, and engineering. It is a font that will give you a new perspective, literally, allowing you to draw connections that you couldn’t before, simply because there was no way for you to glimpse them in a single breath. With PragmataPro, you will learn all the best practices related to the layout of your code and the shape of your output. You will also be able to transcend the 80-column rule and make judgement calls on specific cases that call for 100 or even 120. I have been using PragmataPro for almost 10 years now, and I can confidently say that it is the best font for software development. I have tried many other fonts, but PragmataPro is head and shoulders above the rest. With PragmataPro Fabrizio has cracked some secret code, there is something ineffable to it that others simply cannot replicate. See More

Top Pro

18000+ glyphs

Not only does Pragmata Pro have all the ligatures you might want, but box drawing and math symbols are available as well. Might be the pretty close to a Unicode-complete font. See More

Top Con

Can be expensive

The cost for the bold font is $20 and this can get as high as $225 for the full package. See More

Alexander Tesfamichael's Experience

Use of space is the best I've ever seen. Looking at other fonts now the balance in use of space between characters seems imbalanced and off. With PragmataPro, it feels as if someone spent hours and hours hand tweaking how each character balances with all others. It's hard to explain but needless to say, I still try other fonts sometimes, but that never lasts long. The narrow width-wise spacing will take a moment to get used to and comes with a warning. This property is rare to find in fonts, convenient for coding, and hard to live without once you're used to it. Additionally, the ligatures are gorgeous. If you have an eye for detail, you'll notice subtle hints of beauty. Additionally, this has the functional aspect of easier recognition, making your code more soft on the eyes. As a coder, I am looking at my font of choice about 8 hours a day. I've used dozens of different fonts over the years and yet, it will likely be many years before I'd switch from PragmataPro as my default. See More

Top Pro

Has ligatures

This is useful for those using letters that are joined, such as "æ". See More

Top Con

Lowercase L looks like a number 1

LearnedAchuguayo's Experience

Awesome font See More

Top Pro

Narrow width saves a lot of space

The compact design of the fonts allows for effective editing in 2-3 windows side-by-side, even on a laptop screen. See More

Top Con

"==" and "===" are not implemented

Top Pro

Comprehensive Unicode character support

PragmataPro, more so than most fonts (even non-monospace, professional fonts etc.), supports a crazy-wide range of the Unicode standard; many of those symbols, letters, and special characters are quite useful in writing and programming (e.g. PragmataPro + Vim's conceal feature makes writing LaTeX pretty beautiful). See More

Top Pro

Supports RTL languages

Distinct characters See More

score 26 · Answer 6

Microsoft Cascadia Code

Top Pro

Easy to read

Top Con

Lacks == ligature

Specs

Weights:6 (Extralight, Light, Semilight, Regular, Semibold, Bold)

Not necessarily as good for programming (the question is about programming in particular). See More

Top Pro

Ligatures

Top Con

Designed specifically for terminals

Top Pro

Default in Windows Terminal

The user can adjust letter-spacing, line-height, and choose alternate characters prior to downloading. See More

score 21 · Answer 7

Monoid

Top Pro

Customisable

Top Con

Looks a bit cramped and narrow

PreciseHesperus's Experience

The code is easy to read, ligatures are awesome. However, it is significantly taller than my other fonts so I use it with a smaller size which solves the problem for me. See More

Specs

Zero Style:Custom

Ligatures:Custom

License:MIT/OFL-1.1

Weights:3 (Regular, Retina, Bold)

Which makes it unusable in JS. See More

Top Pro

Makes the code very easy to read

Top Con

"!==" looks like strikethrough equal and another equal

Top Pro

Sharpness

Top Pro

Larger and easier to read with thin condensed letters

Top Pro

Fine without retina

Probably the only one that is. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Monoid is open source meaning it's freely available to anyone. See More

Top Pro

Novel use of ligatures to display ascii character combinations as symbols

The common expression '!=' is displayed as '≠', '>=' as '≥' *, while maintaining the fixed width double-space that these characters would normally take, so as to maintain text alignment. Many others are supported too - see site for details. See More

Top Pro

Great set of ligatures

Italics are connected cursive, which might make them hard to read. See More

score 58 · Answer 8

Victor Mono

Top Pro

Has ligatures

Top Con

Cursive italics

TrustworthyWurrunna's Experience

It feels like a premium font See More

Specs

Weights:Thin, Extra Light, Light, Regular, Medium, Semi-bold, Bold

License:MIT

Not a dealbreaker, but some people prefer looptail 'g' fonts. See More

Top Pro

Has both an oblique and italic style

Top Con

Opentail lowercase 'g'

ProfessionalMelinoe's Experience

Support Latin, Cyrillic and Greek characters See More

Top Pro

Is free

CaringBriareus's Experience

Awesome! Fulfills my dream of getting cursive italics and programming ligatures in a single font! See More

Top Pro

Has a large x-height, making it legible at small sizes

Top Pro

Comes in multiple weights

Operator Mono costs about $200. Dank Mono looks similar but costs only £40. See More

score 20 · Answer 9

Dank Mono

Top Pro

Cheaper alternative to Operator Mono

Specs

Zero Style:Slash

Top Pro

Has ligatures

Top Pro

Italic variant with handwriting style

The character set includes support for many languages (extended Latin characters, Cyrillic, Greek, ...), coding ligatures, math symbols, other various symbols (box drawing, block elements, geometric shapes, ...), and even Powerline characters. The font was clearly made for developers by developers. See More

score 9 · Answer 10

MonoLisa

Top Pro

Impressive range of symbols

Top Con

The Basic edition only contains Regular and Bold weights

Light and Semi Bold weights are only available in the Plus edition. See More

weatherman's Experience

I'm a software developer who experienced different levels of success with free programming fonts on various computer monitors using different operating systems. MonoLisa follows sound design principles and looks good at any weight on all my devices. It is in my opinion an excellent choice as a main programming font, if you are willing to pay the price for the Plus edition. See More

Specs

The authors publish updates every few months with new symbols and adjustments to existing ones. Owners of the Plus edition get access to additional character variations via stylistic sets included in the font. See More

Top Pro

Regular updates

Top Con

Not free

This font requires a purchase in order to be used. The cheapest version ('Basic') is 60 dollars. There is a free trial, though. See More

Top Pro

Well designed and consistent

Characters are distinct from one another and read easily. It's still a pleasure to look at the font after multiple hours of work. See More

Top Con

The Basic edition lacks OpenType features

Cursive italics and other OpenType features (alternative character styles, etc.) are only available in the Plus edition. See More

Top Pro

Reading flow

The characters have been designed to flow into each other so that the font feels easy to read. See More

Top Pro

Customizable OpenType features downloads

The website offers customizable downloads for editors that don't support OpenType features natively. See More

Top Pro

Ligatures

The typeface supports over 120 optionally enabled ligatures for common coding tasks. See More

Top Pro

Italics

The typeface comes with an italic version. See More

Top Pro

Wider than usual

As it's wider, this means there's more space for designing characters like "m". See More

Top Pro

Distinction

Specific care has been put to make programming characters such as 1, i, and l or O or 0 easy to tell apart. See More

Top Pro

Script variant

It comes with script variant for italics. See More

Ligaturizer isn't actually a font, it's a project that lets you add ligatures to any pre-existing fonts. Many popular fonts are already included in the project, so if your favorite font is already there you can just download them and you don't need to run the scripts at all. See More

score 17 · Answer 11

Ligaturizer

Top Pro

Lets you use whatever font you want

Top Con

Some ligatures won't match up

Since you're combining ligatures from one font with another font that's not designed for them, ligatures designed to be paired with other characters won't line up. For example #{ } will form a ligature for #{ using the FiraCode ligatures, but } will use the font native character, and not match up. You can choose which ligatures to build with, so you could remove ligatures that would be paired with another character from your generated font or add the paired characters to match. See More

nisavid's Experience

Worked great for adding Fura Code ligatures to Dank Mono. See More

At $179, this font is on the more expensive side. See More

score 24 · Answer 12

Operator Mono

Top Con

Relatively expensive

Top Pro

Looks elegant on screenshots

AssertiveAmechania's Experience

web developer See More

Specs

Zero Style:Slash

Top Con

No programming ligatures

This font is known for its cursive italics, but it does not contain programming ligatures. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful italics

It's one of the most interesting italic programming fonts. See More

Top Con

Not free

Artists should be appreciated and supported, but Open Source is the preferred model in the developer fields. See More

Top Pro

Wide choice of weights

Top Con

No Cyrillics

This font forcibly doesn't have Cyrillic glyphs. See More

Top Pro

Super readable

Long strings can be read in Operator exceedingly easily. The font just flows nicely, with all the benefits of clarity that provides. See More

Top Con

The Roman style isn't as nice as the italics

Especially the curves on the a, e and s. See More

Top Pro

Braces are unique and interesting

Weights:2 (Regular, Bold)

score 3 · Answer 13

ArrowType Recursive Code Mono Linear

Top Pro

Programming ligatures

Specs

Weights:7 (Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, Extrabold, Black)

score 1 · Answer 14

Huang Fragment Mono

score 4 · Answer 15

JuliaMono

Top Pro

Very configurable

Specs

Top Pro

Has a large number of useful glyphs

Weights:7 (Thin, Ultralight, Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold)

score 1 · Answer 16

Comic Code Ligatures

Weights:5 (Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold)

score 2 · Answer 17

Sudo

Top Pro

Programming ligatures

Specs

Weights:2 (Regular, Bold)

score 2 · Answer 18

D2 Coding

score 2 · Answer 19

Vivala Code

Top Pro

Programming ligatures

Specs

score 2 · Answer 20

DejaVu Sans Code

Top Pro

Comes with Vera/DejaVu Sans Mono + programming ligatures

Specs

Weights:2 (Regular, Bold)

License:Bitstream-Vera