Spleen font
Ranked 3 of 4 bitmap fonts by recommenders
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.
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.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: 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
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 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
Pleasant and readable at small sizes
“Using the font itself and setting line spacing to 1 instead of whatever Github uses makes it slightly easier to understand.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Spleen Monospaced Bitmap Fonts” “And yes, it's quite nice.”
Comment from 24 May 2026 in “It's time to talk about my writerdeck”
Other bitmap fonts people recommend
The three most recommended other bitmap 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GNU Unifont | 16 | 15 | 52% | 5 | — | — |
| Unscii | 11 | 1 | 92% | 2 | — | — |
| Spleen fontThis page | 6 | 1 | 86% | 3 | — | — |
| 5x5 pixel font | 5 | 5 | 50% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
6 of the 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“adopted as the default console font for openbsd”
“And yes, it's quite nice.”
“It has a 5x8 font which has all of ASCII, but most glyphs are actually 4x8 and include horizontal spacing.”
“My favorites, however, aren't even there.”
“Using the font itself and setting line spacing to 1 instead of whatever Github uses makes it slightly easier to understand.”
“feel too rectangular at large sizes”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.