When comparing 6x13 fixed vs Fira Mono, the Slant community recommends 6x13 fixed for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” 6x13 fixed is ranked 37th while Fira Mono is ranked 51st. The most important reason people chose 6x13 fixed is:
6x13 fixed is the apex of bitmap fonts. It has a nice, defined character set and great proportions for quantity of text onscreen, making for excellent readability. It is aesthetically pleasing for a bitmap font and has been deservedly termed 'classic'.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Well designed
6x13 fixed is the apex of bitmap fonts. It has a nice, defined character set and great proportions for quantity of text onscreen, making for excellent readability. It is aesthetically pleasing for a bitmap font and has been deservedly termed 'classic'.
Pro Legible at small sizes
At a small text size, each character has a limited resolution. A character size of 6x13 pixels means only 78 pixels per character. Modern fonts are designed to be scalable and are less legible at these small sizes. Using bitmap fonts increases legibility by eliminating scaling and sub-pixel aliasing artifacts. Some scalable fonts include "ppems" embedded bitmaps for this reason.
Pro Available on every X server
6x13 is the classic fixed monospace bitmap font that is expected to be available on every X server. It is part of the misc-fixed family. These fonts were handcrafted for readability in a terminal.
Pro Widely available
It is distributed alongside the X Window System.
Pro Looks great and is easy on eyes
Almost looks like Source Code pro and works great with Intelli J where Source Code Pro renders all junk on one of the primary IDE.
Very good for people who read code through out the day.
Pro Extremely readable
You can look at the code for hours and hours. The height between lines and the spacing is perfect.
Pro Offers better performance in some Emacs builds
This font is used by some Emacs users on Mac OS X in order to get better performance.
Cons
Con Doesn't have a slashed zero
The absence of non-slashed zeroes makes it harder to distinguish "0" from the letter "O".
Con Extremely small on high-DPI screens
While it is crafted for a screen where the pixels are visible, bitmap fonts do not work well on high-DPI screens as they do not scale too well.
Con Large line height
Compared to other options, Fira has a high line height, which reduces the number of lines you can see on screen at one time.