When comparing Apple Monaco vs Input Mono, the Slant community recommends Input Mono for most people. In the question“What are the best fonts to use in a terminal emulator?” Input Mono is ranked 9th while Apple Monaco is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Input Mono is:
Many letter-forms are available in Input Mono, the width and line-height of which are changeable. There are also non-monospaced sans and sans-serif forms available.
Specs
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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 Customizable
Many letter-forms are available in Input Mono, the width and line-height of which are changeable. There are also non-monospaced sans and sans-serif forms available.
Pro Great on small-sized, high-resolution screens
Input Mono is designed to look good on HiDPI and low-resolution screens of variable zoom levels.
Pro Free for private use
Pro Large punctuation
The punctuation symbols are larger than in other traditional fonts, making for greater visibility.
Pro Non-monospaced sibling fonts
In addition to the monospaced variant, the Input family of fonts includes serif and non-serif proportional font families.
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.