CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font

(codingfont.com)

85 points | by nvahalik 2 hours ago

39 comments

  • deepriverfish 8 minutes ago
    A few years ago I found comic mono and monofur for Powerline. I switch between the 2 when I get bored of one or the other. I decided I won't try any new fonts, it's a waste of time for me and I hate too many options, it's distracting. Same for my editor's them. I switch between Braver's Solarized Light and Radical.

    This way I can focus on coding and less on tweaking my environment.

  • sodimel 1 hour ago
    My coding font is comic-shanns-mono, here's how it looks: https://github.com/jesusmgg/comic-shanns-mono?tab=readme-ov-...
    • rjsw 8 minutes ago
      Reminds me of the original Smalltalk font.
    • card_zero 43 minutes ago
      I was intrigued by a font called Codemonkey. This site has lots of classic comic fonts, including WildWords which is used in pretty much every manga translation.

      https://www.comicbookfonts.com/Code-Monkey-Variable-font-p/b...

      Unfortunately plus signs display as blank spaces in the test drive. Oh well.

    • deepriverfish 12 minutes ago
      I use comic mono myself
    • other_herbert 54 minutes ago
      Comic Code Ligatures for me :D
      • speedgoose 1 minute ago
        Same. It has a double-storey a, which I prefer a lot.
    • nvahalik 1 hour ago
      I initially used this one when I started playing around with Zed on a personal project, but I kept it and it has grown on me considerably.
      • vladde 1 hour ago
        similar situation here, but i used it because i thought it was funny... then kept it because it grew on me haha. had it for a few years, might give it a spin again
    • john_strinlai 1 hour ago
      i like that way more than i would have thought simply based on the name.
  • 0x457 11 minutes ago
    Surprised that I picked Oxygen Mono over Noto, but probably because I wasn't aware of Oxygen.

    Would be nice to be able to play it with my own fonts because some got eliminated purely because 0 (zero) looked like O (letter). Fira Code was a winner only because there weren't paid fonts that I use.

    • whynotmaybe 8 minutes ago
      Exactly, it's not really a "coding" font if 0 is like O
  • mosburger 10 minutes ago
    I got Source Code Pro. My daily driver is currently 0xProto, but I didn't see that in the game (admittedly I think it's kinda rarely used).
  • JasonSage 1 hour ago
    I enjoyed this, though my font preferences are pretty stable.

    It would be nice if it showed you 1st, 2nd, semi-finalist, quarter-finalist...

    It would also be nice to see progress of some kind, a few minutes in I was wondering if I was near completion or just getting started.

    • croemer 59 minutes ago
      It does show you on the left. Just not on the certificate.
  • regus 1 hour ago
    As I get older I prefer the text on my screen to be bigger than usual. Most websites tend to have super small fonts for some reason.

    For coding I much prefer fonts that are bold and easier to read. Who actually likes these whimsical cursive looking comments or super thin looking fonts?

    I ended up with "Roboto Mono" btw.

    • trinari 53 minutes ago
      uh isn't the font size kinda independant from the font style?
      • lstodd 24 minutes ago
        It is, but noone serious has time for appreciating latest trends in web typography, so we just hit the reader mode on load.
  • aquir 1 hour ago
    For me it's Berkeley Mono...I was unable to find anything that comes close to it. But this games is fun and the result is a font that is similar to my favourite
    • sevg 16 minutes ago
      Another Berkeley Mono user here!

      I came from Fira Code to JetBrains Mono to MonoLisa (several years each) then finally settled on Berkeley Mono and refuse to use anything else!

  • KronisLV 40 minutes ago
    Nowadays I use a lot of Iosevka. Previously I was on Ubuntu and JetBrains Mono, both are great fonts. A bit of PT Mono as well, even Terminus for a bit. One of my favorites has got to be Liberation Mono though - the most readable font I’ve ever found, even if Iosevka lets me put more stuff on screen horizontally. Oh also I’ve started enjoying Cascadia Code recently, surprisingly pleasant.
  • ale 1 hour ago
    I stopped looking for fonts after I got comfortable tweaking the metric settings of Iosevka. My current setup exports a set of really compressed cuts (more compressed than Pragmata Pro) which I've always found hard to come by.
  • keithxm23 1 hour ago
    I'd love to see a page which tracked stats for what the majority of users were picking
  • chungy 1 hour ago
    One nit about the site: the screen elements forced me to make my browser window more than half the size of my screen, and I use a 3840×2160 monitor. My windows are normally about ⅕ the size of the screen and roughly 4:3 ratio shaped. It was nearly unusable like that (I don't suffer issues from almost any other site.)

    On the game/bracket: it narrowed me down to Noto Sans Mono and I'm honestly not surprised, it's one of the few fonts that comes with my operating system that I find acceptable.

    That being said, what I actually have my terminal and Emacs set to is “AcPlus IBM VGA 8x16” from https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/. I've always been fond of the VGA font and it tickles all the right usability marks for me.

  • timeinput 1 hour ago
    IBM Plex Mono -- I guess no one ever got fired for choosing IBM?
    • sneak 47 minutes ago
      IBM Plex Mono Ultralight is a joy to look at on a high DPI display.
      • mrweasel 11 minutes ago
        Do you mean Extralight, I can't seem to find the Ultralight. It's probably just my eyes getting older, but I start to prefer chunkier fonts and 18pt.

        Plex is a beautiful font, and one of the few corporate fonts that I actually think works, while being recognizable as being IBM.

  • nikitadotla 55 minutes ago
    Ubuntu Mono. I have been using JetBrains Mono for last 2 years and surprisingly I rejected it in a second iteration.
  • yoyohello13 23 minutes ago
    Every time something like this comes up I always end up with JetBrains Mono.
  • hrimfaxi 25 minutes ago
    This is like an eye test for choosing a font, great idea!!
    • naikrovek 16 minutes ago
      If only it showed fonts that I like.

      I eventually had to buy one I liked, and non-free fonts won’t ever show up in sites like these.

      (It’s called “Codelia” if curious.)

  • Surac 1 hour ago
    Source Code Pro was my winner in this test. I use Iosevka on a regular base
  • croemer 59 minutes ago
    Played it twice to see if it's reproducible. First time, Fira Code; second time Source Code Pro. Source Code Pro came in second first time round as well. Been using Fira Code until now.
  • embedding-shape 1 hour ago
    Doesn't it kind of default the purpose if you can't see it in the actual environment you'd be using it? I know the differences are very minor between terminals and browsers when it comes to font rendering, but this seems like a tool that should be a plugin with the editor people are intending to use the font with, rather than a website.
  • abound 1 hour ago
    Obligatory shout-out to Berkeley Mono [1], which understandably isn't on this site because it's a paid font. I really enjoy the customizer that comes with it, I use the font on all my terminal/IDE environments, as well as on my blog.

    (FWIW, I just did the codingfont bracket and got Source Code Pro, which I've used in the past, along with Iosevka and Commit Mono)

    [1] https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono

  • jbverschoor 10 minutes ago
    Fira Code
  • delta_p_delta_x 1 hour ago
    This kind of breaks for me because I identify all the familiar fonts quite quickly—Consolas, Inconsolata, Iosevka, JetBrains Mono, Fira Mono/Code, Menlo, SF Mono, Courier...
  • stephc_int13 1 hour ago
    Got Jetbrains Mono. Not a surprise as I used this font for a long time and I still use it for my terminal font.

    But I prefer (and use) PragmataPro (not free) and it is not part of the test, sadly.

  • BruceEel 38 minutes ago
    Well, Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono ... - thank you!!!
  • genpfault 1 hour ago
    Doesn't seem to serve rendered samples so you have to set "browser.display.use_document_fonts" to "1" to see anything useful.
    • jeffbee 1 hour ago
      Which is the default, and 99.9% of Firefox users, 99.99% of all users will not have this issue.
  • ranger_danger 1 hour ago
    Fira Code for me.
  • phplovesong 44 minutes ago
    Been running Berkeley Mono for years. Before that i flipped fonts and theme like every week. I sometimes wish you could not change font or color theme at all.
  • wang_li 44 minutes ago
    Serifs so I and l look different, monospace so it's possible to use spaces for alignment, and a slash or dot in the zero. What else do I need?
  • vova_hn2 33 minutes ago
    Is it weird that I look at most of the offered pairs and think "meh, both are ok, I guess", but do not feel any preference one way or the other?

    Like, some fonts look to weird/unusual that I dislike. But most look just fine and I don't really care.

    Am I weird? Do I lack taste?

  • varispeed 27 minutes ago
    Mine is Red Hat Mono, but really I don't like any of the presented fonts.
  • WhereIsTheTruth 29 minutes ago
    JetBrains Mono

    That's the one i have been using for many years, look like i made the right choice

  • cyanydeez 31 minutes ago
    I don't need this many rounds to determine it. There should be "neither" to limit the weird fonts that will never fly.
  • 0xdeadbeefbabe 32 minutes ago
    I'm tired of colors. I wonder if I hate them all or just haven't found the perfect one.
  • bensyverson 58 minutes ago
    Can we just talk about how good Source Code Pro is?
  • nomsters 1 hour ago
    JetBrains Mono. Makes sense
  • Arn_Thor 1 hour ago
    Roboto Mono, apparently
  • ChrisArchitect 45 minutes ago
    Some previous discussion including a Show HN: from the dev:

    2024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41604781

    2021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29010443

  • askl 1 hour ago
    Wow, some of these are looking atrocious. (Victor Mono, Syne Mono, Nova Mono)

    What I'm missing is DejaVuSansMono which is what I'm using. The result of the test was Ubuntu Mono, which looks okay too.

    • jeffbee 1 hour ago
      It is sort of baffling that people make some of these hideous fonts, look at them, and decide to publish them regardless. A font where the lowercase i and l are indistinguishable? Okay...
      • shagie 56 minutes ago
        I was amused that Dank Mono wasn't in the lineup (though there was one that had some of its aesthetics)

        https://philpl.gumroad.com/l/dank-mono

        The one use case I've seen for Dank Mono was presentations with an overhead projector at conferences. The cursive for italics can make some of the structure of the code more differentiated when viewing it at a distance.

  • wendy7756 1 hour ago
    [dead]