: Alternative to font "x" chart or service? I have a number of typefaces for which I'd like to find free or open licence alternatives to. Rather than ask a series of "What is the best open

@Vandalay110

I came across a site awhile ago: Whats the Closest Google Font?

It's one man's opinion and the comparisons are limited. However, for the fonts that he compares, alternatives are given that are all open source.

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@Martha945

Here are my go-to options:


whatfontis.com has a "similar free fonts" section at the end of each font page. It's far from failsafe, but it's quick to look at - so I usually check it out first.
identifont.com is a bit less user-friendly (you'll have to click on each of the similar fonts in the left-hand sidebar to check whether they're actually free) but the results are usually more varied and higher-quality.

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@Cooney243

As far as I'm aware, no. MyFonts.com has a fairly good font recommendation system but they don't do open source.

Your best bet is to identify categories of fonts that you need (eg, Venetian Oldstyle, 19th Century Grotesque, Scotch Roman, etc) then crawl through sites like Font Squirrel and Google Fonts to find the most complete designs.

The price of open source and freeware is that you have to work a little harder ;)

-- Update in response to your update --

No free alternative to a commercial font exists that matches closely enough to simply swap fonts. At least not the legal ones. You have two options:


Bill for your expenses. If these are client projects, work the expense into your fees either up-front with an explanation or over the course of a few projects.
Redesign. For in-house projects or flexible/cheap clients, I would redefine your font specs based on what's available. Find something close, define styles to roughly match the space requirements, search and replace the fonts, and comb through the docs for any problems that may have arisen.

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