The best monospace fonts, according to hackers
25 monospace fonts were recommended on Hacker News between November 2025 and November 2026. We rank them by how many separate people recommend each one, and 10 earn the Hacker Approved badge.
Top picks
The three most recommended monospace fonts with the badge. Each figure is 5 people. RecommendsCriticizes One comment
Highly customizable custom builds
A narrow, highly customizable open-source coding font that fits more text on screen and supports custom builds; critics note huge file sizes and an adjustment period to the narrow width.
Excellent for coding and terminals
Developers who use it for coding and terminals praise its sharpness and customization; critics mainly point to its high price.
Long-time daily driver for many
Free monospace coding font with clear, distinct characters that many people stick with. Critics say it looks too large in headings and is overused.
All 25 monospace fonts, ranked
Select a column heading to sort. Approval share is recommenders out of everyone who gave an opinion; the tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs. Months counts the months, out of 13, in which someone recommended it.
| Rank | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Iosevka | 108 | 10 | 92% | 9 | 5 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| 2 | Nordwand Mono | 40 | 4 | 91% | 1 | — | — |
| 3 | Myna | 29 | 10 | 74% | 1 | — | — |
| 4 | Berkeley Mono | 27 | 6 | 82% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Tied 5 | JetBrains Mono | 23 | 4 | 85% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Tied 5 | MonoLisa v3 | 23 | 17 | 58% | 5 | — | — |
| 7 | Maple Mono | 17 | 4 | 81% | 4 | — | Approved |
| 8 | Fira Code | 16 | 3 | 84% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Tied 9 | PragmataPro | 15 | 1 | 94% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Tied 9 | Monaspace | 15 | 2 | 88% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Tied 11 | IBM Plex Mono | 14 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Tied 11 | Ubuntu Mono | 14 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | Approved |
| Tied 11 | Ioskeley Mono | 14 | 5 | 74% | 4 | — | Approved |
| 14 | Departure Mono | 10 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 15 | Terminus font | 9 | 2 | 82% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 15 | Commit Mono | 9 | 1 | 90% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 17 | Consolas | 8 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
| Tied 17 | Comic Mono | 8 | 1 | 89% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 17 | Cascadia Code | 8 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| 20 | Inconsolata | 7 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 21 | JuliaMono | 6 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
| Tied 21 | DejaVu Sans Mono | 6 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 21 | Source Code Pro | 6 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 24 | Recursive font | 5 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 24 | Pragmasevka | 5 | 1 | 83% | 3 | — | — |
How we rank
Rank is the number of separate people who recommend a product in a Hacker News comment over the past year. Someone who praises the same monospace font in five threads counts once.
The badge goes to monospace fonts that at least 10 people recommend, with recommenders outnumbering critics at least 2 to 1, recommended in at least 4 of the 13 months.
Rankings are never for sale. We may earn a commission when you buy through our links. It never changes the order.