Google Noto vs Bitstream DejaVu

Glyph design on Noto Sans is well designed and accounts for HiDPI and standard displays.

Licensed and distributed under the SIL Open Font License.

Looks very clean and crisp on retina displays.

Simple and beautiful - much like the Windows counterparts such as Calibri and Arial but it's native for Linux and for this reason it looks better than these two with anti-aliasing.

Noto Sans is one of the most comprehensive fonts in the market, covering an estimated 30+ languages backed by Google.

The Vera fonts changed the way the game was played regarding typeface display on digital displays with full hinting for every glyph, allowing the compositor to tweak any character to render well for the specific pixel pattern it had to use for the position it was placed on the screen. It's a pleasant and high-quality foundation for any typographic endeavour.

LaTeX wouldn't be the juggernaut it is currently in academic circles if it weren't for the DejaVu fonts hitting their stride in the same era of computing. So long as there's a bottle of liquor handy and a way to browse the mathematical symbols in the Vera fonts, you'll never be bored and lonely again.

These were easily overlooked until we all started spending half our lives looking at screens that literally fit in the palms of our hands. They're available for all the font weights of both typefaces and the oblique styles as well.