When comparing Fira Mono vs Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, the Slant community recommends Fira Mono for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” Fira Mono is ranked 51st while Bitstream Vera Sans Mono is ranked 69th. The most important reason people chose Fira Mono is:
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.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Compact
You can fit a lot of text on the screen.
Pro Font proportion is perfect
Width is just right (not too narrow, not too wide). Many other fonts lack this.
Pro Smooth with antialiasing
Smooth at small sizes while still clear.
Pro Readable at small sizes
All characters are easy to recognize at small sizes (comma, period, etc).
Pro Easy to read
This is subjective but this font is very easy to read. The letters are all spaced and sized properly.
Cons
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.
Con Line doesn't cover text right
When using Neomutt or htop, the line drawn over is too low - the top of the characters cut into the top of the line.
Con "mp" clump together with smaller sizes
E.g. in "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".