Font licenses, in plain English

Every font on Thats My Font comes under one of three licenses. All three let you use the font in paid client work without asking anyone or paying anything. They differ mostly in what happens when you change the font or pass it on.

This page is a summary written for people who are not lawyers. It is not legal advice, and the license text linked from each font page is what actually governs your use.

SIL Open Font License 1.1 (OFL)

The license most free fonts use, and the one behind almost everything in this archive. It was written specifically for typefaces.

Allowed: Use it in personal and commercial work — logos, books, apps, packaging, video, anything.
Allowed: Install it on as many machines as you like, at home or across a company.
Allowed: Embed it in a website, an app, a PDF or an ebook.
Allowed: Modify it, and redistribute your modified version.
Allowed: Bundle it with a commercial product you sell, as long as the font is part of the product rather than the product itself.
Not allowed: Sell the font file on its own, even if you changed it.
Not allowed: Release a modified version under the original name, if the license names one as reserved.
Not allowed: Redistribute the font without including the license file — which is why every zip here contains one.

A modified version must itself be released under the OFL. You cannot take an OFL font, change it, and make the result closed.

Apache License 2.0

A general software license. A number of older Google-commissioned fonts were released under it before the OFL became the norm.

Allowed: Use it in personal and commercial work with no restrictions on the kind of project.
Allowed: Modify it and redistribute it, including under a different name.
Allowed: Include it in closed-source or commercial products.
Allowed: Sell it as part of a larger work.
Not allowed: Drop the license and copyright notices when you pass it on.
Not allowed: Use the designer’s trademarks to promote your version.

More permissive than the OFL: modified versions do not have to stay under the same license, and there is no reserved-name rule.

Public domain

The designer has given up their rights, or the copyright has expired. There are no conditions at all.

Allowed: Do anything you like with it, including selling it.
Allowed: Modify it, rename it, and claim the changes as your own.
Allowed: Use it with no credit and no license file.

What you will not find here

Fonts described as “free for personal use” are not free in the sense this site uses the word. Their licenses do not permit redistribution, so passing them on would not be ours to do — and using one in paid work usually requires buying a license from the designer. None are listed here.

A demo or trial font, typically a cut-down family given away to advertise the full one, is subject to the same restriction.

A few common questions

Do I have to credit the designer?: None of these three licenses require you to credit anyone in your finished work. It is still a decent thing to do.
Can I use this in a logo I am selling to a client?: Yes, under all three. You can also usually register that logo as a trademark — the license covers the font, not the artwork you make with it.
Can I put the font file on my own website for others to download?: Yes, provided you include the license file with it. That condition is exactly why every download here contains one.

Each font page states its license and links to the full text. Back to the archive