Top 10 Free Icon Fonts

Icon Fonts are all the rage in web design today. They can really spice up the UX without incurring the large payload of images. They are also well suited for doing responsive design because their vector based nature makes them look crisp at any size of pixel density. The fact that they are actually just fonts means you can easily customize their size, color, hover state and even apply cool CSS3 font styles like text shadows.

If you're really serious about site performance, especially for mobile, try building a site without any images and building your own custom icon set with something like Icomoon or Fontello. With a dash of color and the right set of icons, you can build really rich and lively websites with payloads under 100KB! Then for extra credit, serve the font via CDN! (it's actually a bit tricky to do right, but Webpop does it for you automatically via the bundle tag)

Here's the list of the best free icon fonts out there:

Font Awesome - Probably the most popular icon font out there. With a big community of designers behind it and broad coverage of icons, it's one the first font icons sets to reach for. Now subsetting support lets you can pick and choose just the icons you need for a project.

Iconic - Simple yet unique, that's the story behind this set of minimalistic icon fonts. Since the icons are consistent and simplistic, they can be used for almost any project. The icon font is available in various formats and the author has included alternatives for many of the icons.

Foundicons - From the providers of the popular Foundation framework, comes an icon font to assist you in creating great websites. This icon font features solid shapes with rounded edges to give the icons a softer look.

The Noun Project - If it has a name, you'll probably find an icon for it here.

IcoMoon - IcoMoon is more than an icon font, it is an icon app. It has some really cool features such as importing your own icons to use as fonts. Check out the IcoMoon website to get access to their free icon library and more information about the app.

Sosa - These expertly handcrafted icons are available for free thanks to the tenbytwenty team. The Sosa icon font is much more realistic looking than most other icon fonts. There are a total of 121 icons for you to use within this set.

Social Media Icons Pack - Designed by Jelio Dimitrov a.k.a Arsek, this icon font will suit all your social media icon needs. Well designed and easily adaptable, these icons are great for adding customizable social media icons on your own website.

Raphael Icon-Set - Another great font free icon developed by Dmitry Baranovskiy. Most of the common icons are there and several unique ones too.

Typicons - Typicons is a wonderfully crafted icon font with over 88 icons to choose from.

MFG Labs - Nice & clean aesthetic with a practical collection of UI oriented icons.

Rondo - Rondo is a simplistic social media icon font. The logos are encased in a circle giving the icons a nice symmetrical feel. Every social media logo you could possibly need is available in this icon font including uncommon logos such as Apple, Devianart and Stack Overflow.

If you're intesteted to learn about icon font performance, read our article on how to serve icon fonts as fast as possbile with a CDN.

Thanks to Austin Condiff, from The Noun Project for the smiley face.