Best Free Monospace Fonts For Coding

A post that contains both text and code, can be very confusing and hard to read if you don’t present it properly. That is why you need to make sure that the codes are presented clearly, easy to read, and different from texts. If you want to present the code effectively, make sure that you choose the right monospace fonts. It not only helps the reader see the differences between code and text, then read them easier, but also makes your posts look more professional and appealing. Let’s find out the top free monospace fonts for coding as well as programming which are top in the mind of developers.

What Is Monospace Font?

Monospace, also known as fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional fonts, is a type of font. Monospaced characters have a fixed width, or the same amount of horizontal space (including punctuation marks, signs, and symbols). When you look at documents written with fonts of this type, you may have a feeling that the characters look more round and even.

Monospace fonts help to show the codes more neatly and clearly. They also make it easier to indent and margin vertically, which makes the codes look more systematic and spacious so readers can read them more easily. Moreover, using these fonts can also help readers’ eyes feel more comfortable and improve their reading performance significantly. Another thing to notice is that nowadays, the WordPress post editor usually uses monospace fonts as default because it improves your readability a lot.

In this post, we will introduce the best free monospace fonts for developers optimized for code presentation. Moreover, we also provide some suggestions to help you choose your own.

Fira Code

Fira Code is the first monospace font I want to introduce in this collection. Fira Code is very well-known. It is preferred by a huge number of developers. In fact, this font is an extension of the Fira Mono font.

Italic is not available in this font. However, to make up for it, Fira Code supports ligatures to present symbols and operators visually, for example, >= becomes ≥.

Inconsolata

The next monospace font is Inconsolata - an alternative font for Consolas which is Microsoft's exclusive font. This font is very flexible, you can adjust the letters as wide as you like.

A major benefit of Inconsolata is the high resolution, which helps present the codes more sharply. However, besides providing few ligature options. Inconsolata is available for JavaScript only.

Ubuntu Mono

Ubuntu Mono has a modern style and inherits special features from the Ubuntu brand. What makes Ubuntu Mono different is that it can be applied in many languages.

This font is very stable, reliable, especially suitable for programming, and it almost has no errors. Another big plus point is that the huge community of Ubuntu Mono is always willing to answer all your questions.

Anonymous Pro

Another remarkable font I want to share is Anonymous Pro. This font was innovated based on the original font Anonymous. Compared with Anonymous, besides the differences in some main characters, Anonymous Pro also changes the spaces among the characters. That is why codes in Anonymous Pro are easier to read, compared to the original one. In addition, those characters that we usually may not differentiate such as “O” vs. “0”, “I” vs. “l” vs. “1” have different designs as well.

Hack

Hack is a monospace font that is not so new to programmers. I think it is pretty beautiful. At first, this font seems to look like Ubuntu Mono font, but the characters here are a little bolder. Besides, Hack is highly customizable with more than 1.500 glyphs, which allows you to change the display of the characters.

Monoid

Although Monoid is a monospace font for developers and programming, graceful and elegant still are the most accurate depictions for it. This font is neat, beautiful, and easy to read. On the opposite, the punctuation marks and operators are designed in large sizes like other programming fonts so you can differentiate them easily. However, Monoid only displays beautifully on low-resolution screens.

Fantasque Sans Mono

Outstanding with the delicate curves is Fantasque Sans Mono. For people who adore beauty, this font could be their perfect choice. Moreover, the characters in this font are designed to have slightly blurry shapes, which reminds you of the handwriting. As a result, you may think this font is very interesting and different from others.

Iosevka

Iosevka is neither too sturdy like Ubuntu Mono nor too delicate like Fantasque Sans Mono. This font is just right yet still elegant, and it seems to have everything you ask for. That's why Iosevka has been voted as one of the best monospace fonts. Moreover, it also supports 162 different languages and a wide variety of ligatures.

Input Mono

Input Mono is a quite flexible customizable font. It is specifically designed for programmers by David Jonathan Ross. What I like most about this font is that the spaces among characters are wide enough to display the code clearly. You will find it very useful when you need to re-check the codes. In addition, the punctuation marks in this font are designed to be really outstanding so you can differentiate the codes more clearly.

To Sum Up

To programmers, it is very important to not only code accurately but also present them clearly and easily to read when re-checking. That’s why if you want to code more easily, effectively, and time-saving, you need to choose a suitable monospace font.

Moreover, choosing a suitable monospace font also helps the readers differentiate between code and text more clearly.

Hope you can find your most suitable one and feel free to share your experience with us in the comments below.