JetBrains Mono
Philipp Nurullin, Konstantin BulenkovSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Monospace · Variable · 8 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Free Consolas alternatives
Luc(as) de Groot for Microsoft, 2006, and the default in Visual Studio for years.
Why people look for a Consolas alternative
Consolas is bundled with Windows and Visual Studio and is the coding font a great many developers have looked at every day for fifteen years. It cannot be self-hosted, embedded in a web editor, or shipped inside an application — which is why every browser-based code tool needs an open face that behaves the same way.
What a Consolas substitute has to get right
Disambiguation, and it is not optional: a slashed or dotted zero, and an l, a 1 and an I that cannot be confused at 12px. A handsome mono that fails those is unusable for the job.
The 4 in this archive
Listed only where the substitution would survive a designer looking at both — a flattering near-match is worse than a short list.
IBM Plex Mono
Mike Abbink, Bold MondaySphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Monospace · 7 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Source Code Pro
Paul D. HuntSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Monospace · Variable · 8 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Inconsolata
Raph LevienSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Monospace · Variable · 8 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Consolas and its free alternatives, at a glance
- How you get it
- Installed with Windows, Microsoft Office and Visual Studio
- Pass it on, embed it or self-host it
- Not permitted by its licence
- On a website
- Only as a system font, on machines that already have it
Consolas
| Property | JetBrains Mono | IBM Plex Mono | Source Code Pro | Inconsolata |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | OFL-1.1 — free, commercial use allowed | OFL-1.1 — free, commercial use allowed | OFL-1.1 — free, commercial use allowed | OFL-1.1 — free, commercial use allowed |
| Weights | 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 | 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 | 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 | 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 |
| Variable | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Italic | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Türkçe | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Other alphabets | Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Greek, Vietnamese | Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese | Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Greek, Vietnamese | Vietnamese |
| Glyphs | 1,179 | 1,033 | 1,568 | 964 |
| Web font | 51 KB Latin cut | 22 KB Latin cut | 40 KB Latin cut | 107 KB Latin cut |
Questions
- What is the best free alternative to Consolas?
- JetBrains Mono — it is the closest match in this archive, and the page above says which shapes the substitution turns on. 4 faces are listed in total, and which of them is right depends on the size you are setting and the mood you want; set your own words in each before choosing.
- Are these Consolas alternatives free for commercial use?
- Yes. Every font on this site is under a licence that permits commercial use with no fee and no attribution requirement, mostly the SIL Open Font License. That covers paid client work, products you sell, self-hosting on a website, and embedding in an application. The licence file is inside every download.
- Can I use a Consolas alternative in a logo?
- Yes. An open font licence covers the font software rather than the shapes you set with it, so a logo made with one of these can be trademarked like any other. What you cannot do is claim rights over the typeface itself.
- Will a Consolas substitute keep my layout the same?
- Only if it is metrically compatible — drawn so every character occupies the same width as the original, which makes a document reflow identically. Very few faces are, and where one is, this site says so on its page. Everything else will look similar and set differently, so a layout built to the original's widths needs checking rather than assuming.