When comparing Meslo LG vs Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, the Slant community recommends Meslo LG for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” Meslo LG is ranked 15th while Bitstream Vera Sans Mono is ranked 69th. The most important reason people chose Meslo LG is:
The line spacing in Meslo LG makes it very powerful and gives it an amazing look. The font is especially clear for reading code in Eclipse or Intelli J.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great line spacing and very easy on user's eyes
The line spacing in Meslo LG makes it very powerful and gives it an amazing look. The font is especially clear for reading code in Eclipse or Intelli J.
Pro Patched Powerline version exists
A patched version for Vim Powerline is easily downloadable and comes with additional glyphs.
Pro Unambiguous characters
The style of characters avoid ambiguity by making every character distinct. For example, a lower case "L" and upper case "i" are unique such that that it cannot be confused, even if you're unfamiliar with the font.
Pro Compact
You can fit a lot of text on the screen.
Pro Font proportion is perfect
Width is just right (not too narrow, not too wide). Many other fonts lack this.
Pro Smooth with antialiasing
Smooth at small sizes while still clear.
Pro Readable at small sizes
All characters are easy to recognize at small sizes (comma, period, etc).
Pro Easy to read
This is subjective but this font is very easy to read. The letters are all spaced and sized properly.
Cons
Con It's a bit boring
Con Letter 'm' written in size 10 (bold face) becomes just a black square
Con Line doesn't cover text right
When using Neomutt or htop, the line drawn over is too low - the top of the characters cut into the top of the line.
Con "mp" clump together with smaller sizes
E.g. in "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".