JetBrains Mono
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 3 of 23 monospace fonts by recommenders
Free monospace coding font with clear, distinct characters that many people stick with. Critics say it looks too large in headings and is overused.
21 people recommended JetBrains Mono in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from 25 comments.
26 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- mixed feelings
- 1
- warn against or regret it
- 4
The record
Recommended in 8 of 12 months
In 11 different threads.
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
Why it carries the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 11 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 33% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 25 of the 31 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Long-time daily driver for many
“I personally love Jetbrains Mono; it's been one of a kind for me and my tastes.”
Comment from 7 Nov 2025 in “Myna: Monospace typeface designed for symbol-heavy programming languages” “It's my daily driver, so I kind of twitched a bit saying that list in here.”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “Various LLM Smells” “I used this font for a long time and I still use it for my terminal font.”
Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font” - Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Could you share your personal website here?”
- Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font”
Clear, easy to read
“JetBrains Mono, IBM Plex Mono (or Lilex) or Roboto Mono just seem to work much better for my tired eyes”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Iosevka is an open-source, sans-serif and slab-serif monospace font” “Crisp, all characters distinguishable, slightly larger lowercase for better reading”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Google releases its new Google Sans Flex font as open source” “something about it that makes it so clean and pleasant to read”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Best Coding Fonts for Developers in 2026” Good enough to keep defaults
“JetBrains Mono is good enough for me to not venture far away from defaults”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “GNU Unifont” “Ended up with jetbrains mono too, which is what i use anyway”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font” “If JetBrains Mono suits your work you should use it”
Comment from 29 May 2026 in “Various LLM Smells” Free, high-quality coding font
“JetBrains Mono does make it very hard to justify spending anything more than nothing on a good font”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Monolisa v3 – a typeface for developers and creatives” “I find the free choices (JetBrains Mono, Iosevka, Fira Code… quite enough.”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Monolisa v3 – a typeface for developers and creatives”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Looks too large in headings
“It's for code and it's annoying me quite a bit when I see it in big H1 sizes.”
Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “Tells of a Slop UI” “feeling so large compared to the compact characters I'm used to”
Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font”
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 | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iosevka | 95 | 13 | 9 | 91% | 9 | — | — |
| Nordwand Mono | 30 | 9 | 4 | 88% | 1 | — | — |
| JetBrains MonoThis page | 21 | 1 | 4 | 84% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Berkeley Mono | 21 | 6 | 5 | 81% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Myna | 17 | 12 | 7 | 71% | 1 | — | — |
Also compared with Fira Code, IBM Plex Mono, Maple Mono and Ubuntu Mono.
What people said
25 of the 31 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“JetBrains Mono uses the shape that is recommended for writing a "3" that cannot be easily morphed into another digit”
“JetBrains Mono, IBM Plex Mono (or Lilex) or Roboto Mono just seem to work much better for my tired eyes”
“the >> ligature breaks bracket highlighting in visual studio, making them both the same colour”
“It's for code and it's annoying me quite a bit when I see it in big H1 sizes.”
“something about it that makes it so clean and pleasant to read”
“I find the free choices (JetBrains Mono, Iosevka, Fira Code… quite enough.”
“JetBrains Mono does make it very hard to justify spending anything more than nothing on a good font”
“If JetBrains Mono suits your work you should use it”
“It's my daily driver, so I kind of twitched a bit saying that list in here.”
“JetBrains Mono is a lovely font”
“Ended up with jetbrains mono too, which is what i use anyway”
“Nice to know i'm already using my result, jetbrains mono”
“feeling so large compared to the compact characters I'm used to”
“That's the one i have been using for many years”
“I rejected it in a second iteration”
“I used this font for a long time and I still use it for my terminal font.”
“Another tell is the overuse of this font, i.e. too much of the page uses it.”
“I love jetbrains mono, together with go mono my favourite fonts”
“other good coding fonts like Jetbrains Mono”
“yes, plenty of customization there”
“that's my one of my least favorite monospace fonts”
“JetBrains Mono is good enough for me to not venture far away from defaults”
“for myself JetBrains Mono has a distinctive advantage: it includes a much greater character set than any other good programming font”
“Crisp, all characters distinguishable, slightly larger lowercase for better reading”
“I personally love Jetbrains Mono; it's been one of a kind for me and my tastes.”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.