When comparing Courier Prime Code vs Apple San Francisco Mono, the Slant community recommends Apple San Francisco Mono for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” Apple San Francisco Mono is ranked 38th while Courier Prime Code is ranked 113rd. The most important reason people chose Apple San Francisco Mono is:
Code is very readable at both big and small sizes.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Even spacing
Courier Prime Code is a monospace font with adjusted Line Height.
Pro Support for standard font weights
Courier Prime supports Bold, Italics, Bold Italics, and Regular font weights.
Pro Clear and dis·tin·guish·a·ble
Code is very readable at both big and small sizes.
Pro Beautiful with high pixel density
Pro Best legible font
This font is legible in every condition.
Pro Visible punctuation
Punctuation is prominent and easily visible.
Pro Looks good on low and high PPI displays
SF Mono looks good on external monitors and Retina Displays. Large and small font sizes.
Cons
Con Courier Prime Code 0 (zero) is distinct from uppercase O (Oh)
In the other style, Courier Prime, the 0 (zero) is not distinct from uppercase O (Oh).
Con 1 (one) and lower l (ell) are very similar and can be confused
Con Apple is locking down this font
It's not open in any sense of the word. It even gives warnings if you try to rip it out of the Terminal.app or Xcode bundles. Obviously, Apple only wants it on their tools. This is such a shame. It should work in other editors, too. It's a beautiful font. Apple open sourced swift, why can't they be open with a monospace font?
Con No Ligature support
Does not support Ligatures so it doesn't play well with some terminal themes.
Con Lowercase l (ell) is similar to 1 (one)
Con Slightly difficult to use outside of Xcode, Terminal, or Console
The typeface isn't available in Font Book, etc. unless the user imports the files embedded in the apps above.