Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

The Noun Project VS Open Font Library

Compare The Noun Project VS Open Font Library and see what are their differences

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The Noun Project logo The Noun Project

Creating, Sharing and Celebrating the World's Visual Language

Open Font Library logo Open Font Library

The mission of the Open Font Library is to promote your freedoms as it relates to the use of type.
  • The Noun Project Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-07-28
  • Open Font Library Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-08

The Noun Project features and specs

  • Extensive Library
    The Noun Project offers a vast collection of over 3 million icons, covering a wide range of themes and styles, which can be used across various projects.
  • Quality & Consistency
    Icons in The Noun Project are designed by professional designers, ensuring high quality and visual consistency across different icons.
  • Ease of Use
    The platform has a user-friendly interface, making it easy to search, download, and integrate icons into projects.
  • Community Contributions
    The platform allows designers from all over the world to contribute their work, encouraging a diverse range of design styles and cultural representations.
  • Cost-Effective
    Offers both free and premium options, allowing users to access a wide range of icons even with a limited budget.
  • Customizable Icons
    Many icons are customizable in terms of color, size, and format, allowing users to tailor them to their specific needs.

Possible disadvantages of The Noun Project

  • Premium Pricing
    While there are many free icons, access to the entire library and some premium icons may require a subscription which could be costly for some users.
  • Attribution Requirement
    Free icons often require attribution to the designer, which might not be practical or desirable for all users or projects.
  • Limited Uniqueness
    Since the icons are openly available, the same icons might be used by many people, reducing the uniqueness of a project.
  • Overwhelming Choices
    The sheer volume of available icons can be overwhelming, making it difficult for users to find the perfect icon quickly.
  • Dependent on External Platform
    Relying on an external platform means that changes, downtime, or disruptions in The Noun Project's service can affect users' access to icons.
  • Limited Integration
    While there are plugins for some design tools, The Noun Project might not seamlessly integrate with every software or platform designers use.

Open Font Library features and specs

  • Free to Use
    Open Font Library offers a wide range of fonts that are free to download and use. This makes it accessible for individuals and businesses who need fonts without spending money.
  • Open Licensing
    All fonts on Open Font Library come with open licenses that allow them to be used, modified, and distributed freely. This provides flexibility for a variety of projects.
  • Community Contributions
    The platform is community-driven, allowing designers to contribute their fonts. This helps create a diverse collection of fonts with various styles and utilities.
  • Web Font Support
    Open Font Library supports web fonts, making it easy to integrate them into web projects, improving the typography of websites without additional licensing costs.
  • Transparency
    Since it is an open-source initiative, there is a high level of transparency in the process. Users can see changes and updates to fonts and their licenses.

Possible disadvantages of Open Font Library

  • Quality Variability
    Due to its community-driven nature, the quality of fonts can be inconsistent. Some fonts may not be as polished or professionally designed as those found on commercial font websites.
  • Limited Support
    Being an open-source project, it lacks dedicated customer support. Users may have to rely on community forums or other unofficial channels for help.
  • Search and Navigation
    The website's search and navigation functionalities may not be as advanced as those of commercial font repositories, making it harder to find specific types of fonts.
  • Less Frequent Updates
    Updates to the library may be less frequent compared to commercial services that have dedicated teams working on expanding and updating their font collections.
  • Market Penetration
    Since it isn’t as widely known or used as commercial font libraries, there could be fewer user reviews and ratings to guide new users in selecting the right fonts.

Analysis of The Noun Project

Overall verdict

  • Yes, The Noun Project is generally considered a valuable resource for designers, educators, and other professionals who require high-quality icons. Its extensive collection and commitment to diversity and accessibility make it a standout platform.

Why this product is good

  • The Noun Project is highly regarded for its vast and diverse library of icons and symbols that are designed by a global community of designers. It provides users with a wide array of creative options, supports multiple file formats, and offers both free and premium subscription plans. The platform is user-friendly, making it easy to search and find the perfect icons for a wide range of projects. It also emphasizes accessibility and inclusivity by offering culturally diverse representations in its iconography.

Recommended for

  • graphic designers looking for high-quality icons
  • educators in need of visual aids for presentations
  • web developers in search of icons for user interfaces
  • anyone needing icons for social media posts or print materials
  • organizations aiming to find culturally diverse iconography

Analysis of Open Font Library

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Open Font Library is considered a good resource for obtaining open-source fonts. Its commitment to open licenses and community contribution makes it a reliable and versatile option for designers, developers, and hobbyists looking for both diversity and freedom in their typography choices.

Why this product is good

  • Open Font Library (fontlibrary.org) is a valuable resource for those seeking high-quality, freely available fonts. The platform is community-driven and focuses on providing a wide variety of fonts under open licenses, encouraging both use and collaboration. Users have access to a large array of typefaces suitable for both personal and commercial projects.

Recommended for

  • Graphic designers in need of unique and customizable fonts
  • Developers seeking open-source fonts for use in web projects
  • Students and hobbyists interested in exploring typography
  • Anyone requiring fonts that are both free and suitable for commercial use

The Noun Project videos

The Noun Project review: using icons in your slides - The Good, the Bad and the Tip

More videos:

  • Review - The Noun Project: Brian's Go-To Catalog of Over 1 Million Icons!

Open Font Library videos

Open Font Library

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to The Noun Project and Open Font Library)
Web Icons
100 100%
0% 0
Fonts
0 0%
100% 100
Vector Icons
100 100%
0% 0
Web Fonts
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare The Noun Project and Open Font Library

The Noun Project Reviews

12 Best Free FontAwesome Alternatives in 2023 
The Noun Project is another excellent pack of font icons that you can go for. This pack contains icons for practically everything under the sun. You can find more than 5 million curated icons in this pack that have been created by a global and culturally diverse community. All these icons are royalty-free, and you can get them easily in your workflow.
Source: lineicons.com
7 Best Free Icon Libraries
The Noun Project's web icons library offers integrations with Adobe, Mac, Office, and Google apps. This might make you assume spending for a yearly plan. Remember, you can download and use it for free and without attribution.
Source: www.atatus.com
10 Best Fontello Alternatives 2021
Designers and photographers from all walks of life can submit their original designs and images on The Noun Project, under the Creative Commons Zero license. This way, anyone can freely use these designs or photos without restrictions or the need for attributions.

Open Font Library Reviews

We have no reviews of Open Font Library yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, The Noun Project seems to be a lot more popular than Open Font Library. While we know about 143 links to The Noun Project, we've tracked only 6 mentions of Open Font Library. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

The Noun Project mentions (143)

  • IcôNES
    If you’re looking for icons http://thenounproject.com (no affiliation) has a huge collection. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • The Best 100 Free UI/UX Resources for Every Designer & Developer
    The Noun Project Thenounproject.com Free icons with attribution (CC license). - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How to make mix-blend-mode round to black or white only
    Relying on backdrop-filter has one issue: even if you have a transparent background behind your blending element, the rectangle behind it will look black or white too. This is fine for rectangular elements such as the simple scroller inside the CodePen example, but not for complex shapes such as the planet logo from the Noun Project shown in the same example. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Show HN: LogoMVP – Generate quick, professional logos for your MVP
    Hey, great work! You could easily add the Bootstrap Icons library to this. And then perhaps the Noun Project. https://icons.getbootstrap.com/ https://thenounproject.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Useful Websites for Cheat Sheets and Programming Resources
    Content: The Noun Project offers a vast collection of icons that can be used in various projects, providing a wide range of icons for different purposes. Benefits: Access to high-quality icons for use in design and development projects, enhancing visual communication and design. Link: https://thenounproject.com/. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
View more

Open Font Library mentions (6)

  • GNU based fonts
    Except when they are : https://fontlibrary.org/. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Fonts and related issues
    Ttf fonts are kind of sucky on linux. Try more otf fonts. Go to https://fontlibrary.org/ they are all free and open. You can use them on windows as well. Al so make sire anti-aliasing is enabled. And Hinting should be on, mine is the "slight" setting with RGB as the rendering. (I'm using Kubuntu by the way). My system font Is Open Sans and the Monofonts are Hack. Sometimes you just have to play with settings to... Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Where to get fonts and the license to use in creating game?
    I'm using https://www.1001fonts.com/ and https://fontlibrary.org/ - both have font licenses clearly specified, first one allows filtering by commercial use license, second one has all fonts free for commercial use. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Which fonts can I use in my game?
    I usually use this site: https://fontlibrary.org/ (fonts compatible with open-source licenses). Source: over 3 years ago
  • Fonts
    Uncopyrighted - I'm not sure. But if you're ok with Open Font License, try https://fontlibrary.org/. Source: almost 4 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing The Noun Project and Open Font Library, you can also consider the following products

Flaticon - A database of free vector icons.

Google Fonts - Making the web more beautiful, fast, and open through great typography

Icons8 - Free app for Mac & Windows already containing 39,800 icons. Allows to search and import icons…

Dafont - Archive of freely downloadable fonts. Browse by alphabetical listing, by style, by author or by popularity.

Font Awesome - Font Awesome makes it easy to add vector icons and social logos to your website. And version 5 is redesigned and built from the ground up!

Font Squirrel - Font Squirrel scours the internet in search of FREE, highest-quality, designer-friendly, commercial-use fonts and presents them for easy downloading. We don't have the most, but we do have the best.