Here’s the Deal

PT Mono vs Liberation Mono

63 13

83 15

When comparing PT Mono vs Liberation 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 Liberation Mono is ranked 17th. 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

LicenseOFL-1.1

LigaturesNo

Weights2 (Regular, Bold)

Zero StyleSlash

LicenseOFL-1.1

LigaturesNo

Weights2 (Regular, Bold)

Zero StyleDot

Metric-compatibleMonotype Courier New

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Common Questions

What are the best programming fonts?

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
Very readable

Liberation Mono works well with hinting on high-resolution displays.

Pro
As of 2023: Second Best screen-modern drop-in replacement for MT Courier New

Metric-compatible with Monotype Courier New, dot 0 (zero), modern non-Kettler lowercase l (ell), 660+ glyphs, OFL-1.1 license

Pro
Compact line height

Just like Courier New (the metrics of which this font emulates), its line height isn't too big, which results in more lines on the screen, compared to Consolas and several other more popular fonts.

Pro
Has Bold typeface

Ad
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
Difference between "0" and "O" isn't clear

It can be difficult to tell the difference between the number "0" and the letter "O". However, the Fedora Project has a slightly altered version of Liberation Mono that fixes this with a dotted zero.