When comparing MT Andale Mono vs MonoLisa, the Slant community recommends MT Andale Mono for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” MT Andale Mono is ranked 32nd while MonoLisa is ranked 54th. The most important reason people chose MT Andale Mono is:
It's easy to distinguish "0" from "O", "a" from "o", and "I" from "l" from "1".
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Excellent legibility
It's easy to distinguish "0" from "O", "a" from "o", and "I" from "l" from "1".
Pro Good font variants
Boldface variant is not too heavy while italic face is not too spindly. Andale Mono contrasts with Source Code Pro, which is very similar in the regular font face.
Pro Customizable OpenType features downloads
The website offers customizable downloads for editors that don't support OpenType features natively.
Pro Script variant
It comes with script variant for italics.
Pro Ligatures
The typeface supports over 120 optionally enabled ligatures for common coding tasks.
Pro Italics
The typeface comes with an italic version.
Pro Space
Space used by the characters has been carefully balanced to keep them light to read.
Pro Reading flow
The characters have been designed to flow into each other so that the font feels easy to read.
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.
Pro Wider than usual
As it's wider, this means there's more space for designing characters like "m".
Cons
Con Not pure mono
Bold and italic are too wide, so it's not pure mono in combination with regular font.
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.
Con Wider than usual
As it's wider, this means a short adjustment period may be required. If you have a limited amount of horizontal space, the wider glyphs may be problematic as well.