DejaVu Sans Mono
Shares rank 21 of 25 monospace fonts by recommenders
A long-standing default monospace font that people keep returning to for coding, praised for its hinting and comfortable spacing. Some find its look uglier.
A long-standing default monospace font that people keep returning to for coding, praised for its hinting and comfortable spacing. Some find its look uglier.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Default many people are used to
“I end up switching back to DejaVu Sans Mono for just about everything monospaced.”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Iosevka is an open-source, sans-serif and slab-serif monospace font” “That was the default for years and it's what a lot of us are used to.”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Auto-hinter looks only decent
“DejaVu Mono looks decent with the auto-hinter, but it has phenomenal hinting bytecode”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “SDF vs. MSDF vs. Slug: GPU Text Rendering” Looks uglier than others
“DejaVu Sans Mono also has a big character set, but it is definitely uglier”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source”
Other monospace fonts people recommend
The four most recommended other monospace fonts, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iosevka | 108 | 10 | 92% | 9 | 5 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| Nordwand Mono | 40 | 4 | 91% | 1 | — | — |
| Myna | 29 | 10 | 74% | 1 | — | — |
| Berkeley Mono | 27 | 6 | 82% | 7 | — | Approved |
| DejaVu Sans MonoThis page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
5 of the 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it feels comfortably spaced”
“I end up switching back to DejaVu Sans Mono for just about everything monospaced.”
“DejaVu Mono looks decent with the auto-hinter, but it has phenomenal hinting bytecode”
“That was the default for years and it's what a lot of us are used to.”
“DejaVu Sans Mono also has a big character set, but it is definitely uglier”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.