Add to Chrome
Add to Edge
Add to Firefox
Add to Opera
Add to Brave
Add to SafariWhen comparing Apple Monaco vs Fantasque Sans Mono, the Slant community recommends Apple Monaco for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” Apple Monaco is ranked 12th while Fantasque Sans Mono is ranked 27th. 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
Question Ranking
Pros
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.
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 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.
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.
