# Fira Code

16 Hacker News commenters recommended Fira Code and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A free monospaced coding font with programming ligatures, valued for readability and for telling ambiguous characters apart. Some users drop the ligatures, and it renders oddly in some terminals.

## Why people recommend it

- Free and easy to read (2 comments): "I find the free choices (JetBrains Mono, Iosevka, Fira Code, ...) quite enough." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48665656)) "I use Fira Code (like many) and it is very readable as well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46254162))
- Long-time favorite font (3 comments): "I've been happily using this for the last decade or so." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45886718)) "I've always preferred it since I've been using it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46957068)) "the font I've been using for years now" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578859))

## What people warn about

- Ligatures can't be disabled in mintty (1 comments): "ligatures in Fira Code cannot be disabled when using the Cygwin terminal in Windows (mintty)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50093227))
- Some find it ambiguous in tests (2 comments): "I use Fira Code, which I eliminated in the first round." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578006)) "it looks two characters wide" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46976249))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Iosevka](https://hackerapproved.com/p/iosevka.md): 108 recommend
- [Nordwand Mono](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nordwand-mono.md): 40 recommend
- [Myna](https://hackerapproved.com/p/myna-typeface.md): 29 recommend
- [Berkeley Mono](https://hackerapproved.com/p/berkeley-mono.md): 27 recommend
- [JetBrains Mono](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jetbrains-mono.md): 23 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Fira Code", https://hackerapproved.com/p/fira-code/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).