When comparing Meslo LG vs Apple Monaco, the Slant community recommends Apple Monaco for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” Apple Monaco is ranked 12th while Meslo LG is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose Apple Monaco is:
Monaco's rendering is similar to that of Consolas but slightly more playful. Each character seems to be a tiny bit larger when compared to Consolas, yet code takes up the same amount of space.
Specs
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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 Easy on user's eyes
Monaco's rendering is similar to that of Consolas but slightly more playful. Each character seems to be a tiny bit larger when compared to Consolas, yet code takes up the same amount of space.
Pro Good differentiation between clashing characters
The curly braces are easily distinguishable from parentheses, "0" is distinguishable from "O", and "1" is distinguishable from "l", to name but a few.
Pro Beautiful braces, perfect parens
Parentheses are half-circles. Square brackets, half-squares. Curly braces, unmistakable. Geometric, classy, fun, and most importantly clear.
Other fonts' bracket delimiters might start to look lifeless and wilted.
Especially well-suited to those who color their brackets as the colors show even against light backgrounds.
Pro Excellent legibility at non-antialiased small sizes
This font shines for legibility at non-antialiased small sizes. It was originally designed as a 9 pt bitmap font. This is excellent for when maximizing on-screen code is a priority.
Pro Small file size
Even if you are struggling with memory, this font is no concern. Its ttf file is just about 50 kb.
Cons
Con It's a bit boring
Con Letter 'm' written in size 10 (bold face) becomes just a black square
Con Only comes with Mac OS X
While it generally only came with OS X, you can try here for installing on other platforms.
Con Ability to select different anti-aliasing grades was dropped
Before OS X Snow Leopard, it was possible to apply varying degrees of anti-aliasing to the font. At present, the previously "medium" anti-aliasing option is the only choice.