What are the best monospace programming fonts with ligatures?

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score 49 · Answer 1

Fira Code

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Many ligatures supported

Quite a few compared to some of the other fonts that support ligatures. 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. See More

Top Pro

Works in any editor that supports ligatures

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

Top Pro

Supports Retina displays

Fira Coda supports high pixel density Retina displays. See More

Top Con

No italics

There is no italic variant as of April 7, 2017. See More

Top Pro

Characters look really nice

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

Frequent updates

The repository is frequently updated. 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 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 Pro

Good editor support

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

Specs

score 18 · Answer 2

Iosevka

Top Pro

Readable

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

Top Con

Looks bad when used as a terminal font

Top Pro

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

Top Pro

Several styles available

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

Large number of weights

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

IPA support

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

Good CJK compatibility

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

Specs

score 19 · Answer 3

Hasklig

Top Con

Lacks !=

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

Top Pro

Has a heavier appearance than Fira Code or Monoid.

Top Pro

Great for Haskell

Top Pro

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

Specs

score 4 · Answer 4

Monoid

Top Pro

Makes the code very easy to read

Top Con

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

Which makes it unusable in JS. 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

Specs

score 4 · Answer 5

PragmataPro

Top Pro

7000+ 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

Not free

Top Pro

Responsive author, frequent updates

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

Top Con

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

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

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

Specs

Ligatures:Yes

See All

score 2 · Answer 6

Ligaturizer

Top Pro

Lets you use whatever font you want

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

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

score 2 · Answer 7

The Best 1 of 6 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for Fira Code

My Recommendation for Fira Code

Many ligatures supported

Lowercase 'r' looks off

Works in any editor that supports ligatures

Some ligatures will never be implemented

Supports Retina displays

No italics

Characters look really nice

Frequent updates

Has ligatures

Installs easily on Mac

Good editor support

Language Agnostic

5 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Iosevka

My Recommendation for Iosevka

Readable

Looks bad when used as a terminal font

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

Several styles available

Large number of weights

Free and open source

Easy on user's eyes

IPA support

Can be customized

Good CJK compatibility

My Recommendation for Hasklig

My Recommendation for Hasklig

Lacks !=

Has a heavier appearance than Fira Code or Monoid.

Great for Haskell

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

My Recommendation for Monoid

My Recommendation for Monoid

Makes the code very easy to read

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

Novel use of ligatures to display ascii character combinations as symbols

Great set of ligatures

My Recommendation for PragmataPro

My Recommendation for PragmataPro

7000+ glyphs

Not free

Responsive author, frequent updates

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

Has ligatures

Lowercase L looks like a number 1

Narrow width saves a lot of space

My Recommendation for Ligaturizer

My Recommendation for Ligaturizer

Lets you use whatever font you want

Some ligatures won't match up

Don't see your favorite option? Add it.

My Recommendation for PT Mono

My Recommendation for PT Mono

My Recommendation for Ubuntu Mono

My Recommendation for Ubuntu Mono

114 Community Recommendations

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