When comparing PT Mono vs Apple San Francisco Mono, the Slant community recommends PT Mono for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” PT Mono is ranked 14th while Apple San Francisco Mono is ranked 38th. The most important reason people chose PT Mono is:
PT Mono uses slashed zeros and a rounded lowercase "L", while all numbers are easily distinguishable.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Clear characters
PT Mono uses slashed zeros and a rounded lowercase "L", while all numbers are easily distinguishable.
Pro Crisp on display
No pixelation on high pixel density displays.
Pro Clearest parentheses/braces/brackets
You will read ({[ something like this with PT Mono smoothly on screen on any size and quality.
Pro Clear and dis·tin·guish·a·ble
Code is very readable at both big and small sizes.
Pro Beautiful with high pixel density
Pro Best legible font
This font is legible in every condition.
Pro Visible punctuation
Punctuation is prominent and easily visible.
Pro Looks good on low and high PPI displays
SF Mono looks good on external monitors and Retina Displays. Large and small font sizes.
Cons
Con No ligatures
Con Lower t stem is short, too similar to lower c
Preferentially, lower f, i, r, have feet, however fortunately lower l (ell) is tailed.
Con No Greek letters
Con Apple is locking down this font
It's not open in any sense of the word. It even gives warnings if you try to rip it out of the Terminal.app or Xcode bundles. Obviously, Apple only wants it on their tools. This is such a shame. It should work in other editors, too. It's a beautiful font. Apple open sourced swift, why can't they be open with a monospace font?
Con No Ligature support
Does not support Ligatures so it doesn't play well with some terminal themes.
Con Lowercase l (ell) is similar to 1 (one)
Con Slightly difficult to use outside of Xcode, Terminal, or Console
The typeface isn't available in Font Book, etc. unless the user imports the files embedded in the apps above.