Unicode symbol reference page
Ranked 4 of 7 reference documentations by recommenders
Developers recommend it as a clean, attractive reference for finding and copying Unicode symbols and font values. Critics say the design is cluttered and search misses many characters.
Developers recommend it as a clean, attractive reference for finding and copying Unicode symbols and font values. Critics say the design is cluttered and search misses many characters.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 17
- approval share
- 32%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Clean, attractive design
“This is beautiful. Love the design. When I read the title I thought it was "one page per Unicode"”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “This is some great tool for account holders who wants aesthetic styling.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “Very clean design, congrats!”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” Useful for everyday symbol lookup
“Very cool and helpful - I'll be using this a lot!”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “Quite useful, but that's far from "clean".”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Search misses many symbols
“It's odd that searching for "section" finds U+2E39 (Top Half Section Sign) but not U+00A7 (Section Sign).”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “for anything that isn't in your curated set I'm unable to even find it if I paste the literal character”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “right now the “right half running man” is not listed anywhere on that page”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” - Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol”
Cluttered, noisy, distracting visuals
“It feels really noisy and specifically, not clean for me too, so much that it pushes me away.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “this is one of the worst I’ve used in terms of distracting visual noise”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “The design is overwhelmingly cluttered and distracting.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” Poor text contrast and readability
“Please don't display text directly on the grid background image. It makes it impossible to read the text easily.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “these extreme color contrasts don't even seem to have any obvious correlations”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol”
Other reference documentations people recommend
The four most recommended other reference documentations, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stack Overflow | 235 | 499 | 32% | 12 | 15 yrs39 owners | — |
| MDN Web Docs | 27 | 6 | 82% | 7 | — | Approved |
| HTTP Cats | 20 | 1 | 95% | 1 | 10 yrs3 owners | — |
| Unicode symbol reference pageThis page | 8 | 17 | 32% | 1 | — | — |
| Can I Use | 5 | 3 | 63% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 25 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“This is some great tool for account holders who wants aesthetic styling.”
“Very clean design, congrats!”
“these extreme color contrasts don't even seem to have any obvious correlations”
“for anything that isn't in your curated set I'm unable to even find it if I paste the literal character”
“Why do I get a spinning "waiting" on every page? That doesn't seem "clean" to me...”
“I know the colors are a little ... intense, but I love it!”
“I searched for "greater than" and got no results.”
“That is incorrect. As you say, you should just write the character in your HTML”
“Why can't it find "Angstrom" (U+212B)?”
“Gratuitous, unnecessary cookies (and accompanying cookie consent dialog)”
“The styling/design doesn’t work with dark-mode extensions like Noir.”
“Quite useful, but that's far from "clean".”
“right now the “right half running man” is not listed anywhere on that page”
“Very cool and helpful - I'll be using this a lot!”
“The related to symbols make little sense. For example: https://fontgenerator.design/symbol/acute-angle Does not link to all other "angle" pages”
“It's odd that searching for "section" finds U+2E39 (Top Half Section Sign) but not U+00A7 (Section Sign).”
“It feels really noisy and specifically, not clean for me too, so much that it pushes me away.”
“this is one of the worst I’ve used in terms of distracting visual noise”
“The design is overwhelmingly cluttered and distracting.”
“way too many abbreviated descriptions and no way to see the full name of a symbol without clicking on it”
“Please don't display text directly on the grid background image. It makes it impossible to read the text easily.”
“This is beautiful. Love the design. When I read the title I thought it was "one page per Unicode"”
“tapping on a square “highlights” it, by making it “pop,” but nothing else really happens.”
“the expand icon covers 1/4 of each character”
“I appreciate the many "copy" buttons that make it easy to grab various font values”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.