When comparing MT Courier 12 vs Liberation Mono, the Slant community recommends Liberation Mono for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” Liberation Mono is ranked 17th while MT Courier 12 is ranked 77th. The most important reason people chose Liberation Mono is:
Liberation Mono works well with hinting on high-resolution displays.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Clear glyph resolution
Pro Simple yet effective
Pro Comes pre-installed on almost any operating system
This means that the user doesn't have to go to the bother of installing anything.
Pro Very readable
Liberation Mono works well with hinting on high-resolution displays.
Pro As of 2023: Second Best screen-modern drop-in replacement for MT Courier New
Metric-compatible with Monotype Courier New, dot 0 (zero), modern non-Kettler lowercase l (ell), 660+ glyphs, OFL-1.1 license
Pro Compact line height
Just like Courier New (the metrics of which this font emulates), its line height isn't too big, which results in more lines on the screen, compared to Consolas and several other more popular fonts.
Pro Has Bold typeface
Cons
Con 1 (one) and lowercase l (ell) are very similar and can be confused
Con Doesn't look very good
Con Doesn't have a slashed zero
Con Difference between "0" and "O" isn't clear
It can be difficult to tell the difference between the number "0" and the letter "O". However, the Fedora Project has a slightly altered version of Liberation Mono that fixes this with a dotted zero.