When comparing Dalton Maag Ubuntu Mono vs Fantasque Sans Mono, the Slant community recommends Dalton Maag Ubuntu Mono for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” Dalton Maag Ubuntu Mono is ranked 11th while Fantasque Sans Mono is ranked 27th. The most important reason people chose Dalton Maag Ubuntu Mono is:
Line thickness, shape, and spacing help you to recognize characters and words correctly the first time through, without your eyes having to skip back and re-read.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Excellent readability
Line thickness, shape, and spacing help you to recognize characters and words correctly the first time through, without your eyes having to skip back and re-read.
Pro Pleasant aesthetics
The font has a rounded, smooth aesthetic that is particularly appealing.
Pro Easily distinguishable characters
There are dotted zeroes in Ubuntu Mono so to distinguish from the letter "O" (Oh), while the lowercase letter "l" (ell) is very different from the number "1" (one).
Pro Legible even at small sizes
The fonts retain legibility and under subpixel rendering at small sizes.
Pro Many languages
1,200 glyphs, 200-250 languages (native languages of 3 billion people).
Pro Open source font
SIL Open Font License.
Pro Italics look good
The handwritten-style italics of Fantasque Sans Mono are quite attractive.
Pro Open source
Fantasque Sans Mono is open source, meaning it can be freely used, changed, and shared by anyone.
Pro Uniformity
As a "Mono" font, Fantasque is uniform in size and overalls. However, if you look further into all characters, you'll find that there's almost no pattern between them - except for the huge amount of curves. That said, this font is a very strong contender in terms of readability, especially in a world that seeks pattern (often too much).
An example:
Double single quotes vs single double quotes. In JavaScript code, you can find empty String initialization a lot. Unless syntax highlighting makes it clear, it's pretty hard with other fonts to spot the difference between double single quotes and single double quote.
Pro Support for various platforms
There's support for OS X, Linux, and Windows (otf, ttf) in Fantasque Sans Mono.
Pro No useless experiments with special characters
Pro Own personality
It looks distinct, playful. But don't cross the line when it becomes unusable.
Pro Lowercase "k" looks nice
Pro Glyphs support
This is good for those who wish to use different designs of a certain character.
Pro Has ligatures
Alpha version supports ligatures as Fira Code does.
Pro Truly compact
The Height line is quite short but coherent. You have to like the style but this is one of the most readable at a small size ( 9pts ).
Pro Cyrillic alphabet support
This is useful for those who wish to use letters from certain Eastern European or Asian alphabets.
Pro Webfonts included (eot, svg, woff)
Webfonts, such as eot, svg, and woff, are included in Fantasque Sans Mono.
Pro Powerline symbols
Cons
Con Lowercase "i" (eye) is tailed, and too similar to lowercase "l" (ell)
Same with Hack and Red Hat Mono.
Con Many characters seem imbalanced
Some of the characters don't feel like they match well which can be distracting.
Con The font is too small
Ubuntu's 13pt looks like 10pt of another font.
Con Lowercase "m" is weird and stands out
The lowercase "m" in Ubuntu Mono really stands out because of its unusual shape, which disrupts the user's attention when reading.
Con Dotted zero characters less distinguishable
Dotted zero characters are much less distinguishable than those that are slashed.
Con No support for combined unicode characters
For example, x̄ is rendered as x ̄.
Con Lowercase "i" (eye) is tailed, and too similar to lowercase "l" (ell)
Same with Hack and Ubuntu Mono.
Con Lowercase "k" is ugly
The lowercase "k" seems like a strange "r" since it has a line that extends to the top of capital letters. There is currently a workaround aiming to correct this.
Con The size is too small
Letter size is smaller than other fonts at the same setting.