Comparison of font editors

This is a technical feature comparison of font editors.

General

Basic general information about font editors: creator, first release date, latest stable version, latest release date and license.

Software	Creator	First release date	Latest stable version	Latest release date	License
BirdFont [1]	Johan Mattsson	August 24, 2012			Proprietary or open source
DTL FontMaster	Dutch Type Library		3.0		Proprietary
DTL FontMaster Light	Dutch Type Library		2.7[2]		Free
DTL OTMaster			6.3[2]		Proprietary
DTL OTMaster Light			3.7[2]		Free
FontArk (Web service)					Proprietary
FontCreator	Erwin Denissen	January 25, 1999	15.0.0.306	October 14, 2024	Proprietary
FontDraw	Alexander Kirichenko	April 25, 2022	1.0	April 25, 2022	Proprietary
FontForge	George Williams		20230101	January 1, 2023	GPL3
FontLab	Yuri Yarmola	1993	8.4.2.8950	September 25, 2024	Proprietary
Fontographer	Jim von Ehr		5.2		Proprietary
Glyphr Studio [3]	Matt LaGrandeur, Mateusz Zawartka, Troy Coutu, & Eric Newport		0.5.3	October 2019	GPL3
Glyphs	Georg Seifert	2011	3.2	June 16, 2023	Proprietary, file format and parts of the code open source
Ikarus					Proprietary
RoboFont					Proprietary
Type			3.2		Proprietary
Type light			3.2.038		Proprietary
TypeTool			3.1		Proprietary
VOGG					Free

Operating system support

The table below lists the operating systems on which each font editor can run.

Software	Windows	OS X	Linux	Android	iOS
Birdfont	Yes	Yes	Yes
Crossfont		Yes
DTL FontMaster	Yes
DTL FontMaster Light	Yes
DTL OTMaster	Yes	Yes	Yes
DTL OTMaster Light	Yes	Yes	Yes
FontCreator	Yes	Yes
FontDraw	Yes
FontForge	Yes	Yes	Yes
FontLab	Yes	Yes
Glyphs	No	Yes
Robofont	No	Yes
Type	Yes	Yes
Type light	Yes	Yes
TypeTool	Yes	Yes
VOGG					Yes

General features

Below is an overview of general features typical for font editors.

Software	Maximum number of glyphs supported	Colored glyphs	Windows Type 1 (.pfb) editor	Mac Type 1 (LWFN) editor	OpenType TT / TrueType (.ttf) editor	Mac TrueType (sfnt/dfont) editor	TrueType Collection (.ttc) editor	OpenType PS (.otf) editor	Macro / Script
FontCreator	unlimited in source file[4]	COLR, CPAL, SVG [5]			import and export		import	import and export	OpenType PS (.otf) editor Macro / Script Transformations
FontForge		No[6]	import and export[7]	import and export[8]	import and export[9]	import and export[10]	import and export[11]	import and export[12]	Yes[13]
FontLab	unlimited in source file	COLR, CPAL, SBIX, SVG [14]	import & export		import & export	import	import	import & export	Python scripting
Glyphs	unlimited in source file	COLR, CPAL, SBIX, SVG [15]	import	import	import & export	import	import	import & export	Python script and plug-ins, Objective-C plug-ins, free SDK available

The OpenType cmap table can reference a maximum of 65536 glyphs.^[16]

TrueType hinting

Font editors supporting TrueType hinting can do that either automatically or manually. The availability of these functions and the possibility to debug hinting is indicated in the following table.

Software	Automatic TrueType hinting	Manual TrueType hinting	TrueType hinting debugger
FontCreator 12	ttfAutohint
FontDraw 1.0	ttfAutohint
FontLab	ttfAutohint & FontLab	GUI	code preview and rendering previews, including Windows ClearType on macOS
Glyphs	ttfAutohint	GUI	live preview of 3 renderings
FontForge	yes (unknown type)[17]	yes	??

See also

• Font editor
• Comparison of vector graphics editors