# Spleen font

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Spleen font and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free monospaced bitmap font with a full ASCII set; people find it pleasant to read at small sizes, and it is OpenBSD's default console font.

## Why people recommend it

- Pleasant and readable at small sizes (2 comments): "Using the font itself and setting line spacing to 1 instead of whatever Github uses makes it slightly easier to understand." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46113887)) "And yes, it's quite nice." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48253411))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [GNU Unifont](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnu-unifont.md): 16 recommend
- [5x5 pixel font](https://hackerapproved.com/p/5x5-pixel-font.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Spleen font", https://hackerapproved.com/p/spleen-font/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).