Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Font Awesome VS The Noun Project

Compare Font Awesome VS The Noun Project and see what are their differences

Font Awesome logo Font Awesome

Font Awesome makes it easy to add vector icons and social logos to your website. And version 5 is redesigned and built from the ground up!

The Noun Project logo The Noun Project

Creating, Sharing and Celebrating the World's Visual Language
  • Font Awesome Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-09
  • The Noun Project Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-07-28

Font Awesome features and specs

  • Comprehensive Icon Library
    Font Awesome offers a vast collection of icons, providing a wide range of options for different use cases and making it easier for developers to find the perfect icon to fit their needs.
  • Easy Integration
    Font Awesome can be easily integrated into web projects using either a CDN link or by downloading the icon set. This makes it convenient for developers to start using icons quickly without extensive setup.
  • Scalability
    Since Font Awesome icons are vector-based, they are infinitely scalable without losing quality. This ensures that icons look sharp on all devices and screen resolutions.
  • Customizable
    Font Awesome icons can be customized easily with CSS, allowing developers to change colors, sizes, and even create animations to match the design of their projects.
  • Consistent Design
    The icons in Font Awesome are designed to be consistent with each other in terms of style, line weight, and aesthetic, which helps in maintaining a uniform look across a web project.
  • Accessibility
    Font Awesome includes ARIA attributes and support for screen readers, ensuring that icons can be interpreted correctly by assistive technologies for better accessibility.

Possible disadvantages of Font Awesome

  • File Size
    Font Awesome can add substantial size to web projects, particularly if the entire library is imported. This can slow down load times, especially on mobile devices or slower internet connections.
  • Dependence on External Resources
    Using a CDN for Font Awesome can create a dependency on external resources. If the CDN is down or blocked, the icons will not display correctly.
  • License Fees
    While Font Awesome offers a free version, the Pro version with more icons and features requires a subscription. This can be a limitation for projects with tight budgets.
  • Overhead for Simple Projects
    For small projects that only require a few icons, using Font Awesome can be overkill. The overhead of including the entire library may not be justified when only a handful of icons are needed.
  • Potential for Version Conflicts
    Using Font Awesome alongside other libraries or different versions of Font Awesome can sometimes lead to conflicts, resulting in icons not displaying correctly or styling issues.
  • Limited to Available Icons
    Despite its large collection, users are restricted to the icons available in Font Awesome. Custom or niche icons that aren't included in the library will need to be sourced or created elsewhere.

The Noun Project features and specs

  • Extensive Library
    The Noun Project offers a vast collection of over 3 million icons, covering a wide range of themes and styles, which can be used across various projects.
  • Quality & Consistency
    Icons in The Noun Project are designed by professional designers, ensuring high quality and visual consistency across different icons.
  • Ease of Use
    The platform has a user-friendly interface, making it easy to search, download, and integrate icons into projects.
  • Community Contributions
    The platform allows designers from all over the world to contribute their work, encouraging a diverse range of design styles and cultural representations.
  • Cost-Effective
    Offers both free and premium options, allowing users to access a wide range of icons even with a limited budget.
  • Customizable Icons
    Many icons are customizable in terms of color, size, and format, allowing users to tailor them to their specific needs.

Possible disadvantages of The Noun Project

  • Premium Pricing
    While there are many free icons, access to the entire library and some premium icons may require a subscription which could be costly for some users.
  • Attribution Requirement
    Free icons often require attribution to the designer, which might not be practical or desirable for all users or projects.
  • Limited Uniqueness
    Since the icons are openly available, the same icons might be used by many people, reducing the uniqueness of a project.
  • Overwhelming Choices
    The sheer volume of available icons can be overwhelming, making it difficult for users to find the perfect icon quickly.
  • Dependent on External Platform
    Relying on an external platform means that changes, downtime, or disruptions in The Noun Project's service can affect users' access to icons.
  • Limited Integration
    While there are plugins for some design tools, The Noun Project might not seamlessly integrate with every software or platform designers use.

Font Awesome videos

Star Ratings With JavaScript & Font Awesome

More videos:

  • Review - Add Font Awesome Icons to our Buttons, freeCodeCamp Bootstrap Review, lesson 13
  • Review - Add Font Awesome Icons to all of our Buttons, freeCodeCamp Bootstrap Review, lesson 14

The Noun Project videos

The Noun Project review: using icons in your slides - The Good, the Bad and the Tip

More videos:

  • Review - The Noun Project: Brian's Go-To Catalog of Over 1 Million Icons!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Font Awesome and The Noun Project)
Web Icons
46 46%
54% 54
Vector Icons
56 56%
44% 44
Icon Fonts
53 53%
47% 47
Web Fonts And Design Assets

User comments

Share your experience with using Font Awesome and The Noun Project. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Font Awesome and The Noun Project

Font Awesome Reviews

Revolutionize Your Icon Collection: 5 CSS Icon Sites to Boost Your Web Designs
Font Awesome is one of the most comprehensive libraries of CSS icons available, with over 1,500 scalable vector icons that can be customized using CSS classes.
7 Best Free Icon Libraries
While Font Awesome was a font-based asset library i.e font icon library, Bootstrap chose to use SVG-based icons. At this time, Bootstrap Icons consists of over 1,000 ready-to-use library icons in the alpha version.
Source: www.atatus.com
The Best Free And Paid Icon Fonts - Font Awesome Alternatives
On the Internet, you can easily find many services that give everyone thousands of beautiful icons for free or for a fee. With their help, you can design a website or a page on a social network. There are many alternatives to Font Awesome, but, unfortunately, there are few Russian-language sites. Although, even without translation, it is clear how to find the desired icon...
Source: www.wcido.com
9 FontAwesome Alternatives That Are Equally As Good
FontAwesome is by far one of the most popular source for font icons, with a huge collection of icons. But it is highly unnecessary to download the whole collection when you need to use just a few.
10 Best Fontello Alternatives 2021
Similar to other vector makers and Fontello, you can use Font Awesome to create custom icons of your own using a variety of colors, shapes, and font styles. When you’re done, you can share your newly minted icons with others or save them directly on your computer.

The Noun Project Reviews

12 Best Free FontAwesome Alternatives in 2023 
The Noun Project is another excellent pack of font icons that you can go for. This pack contains icons for practically everything under the sun. You can find more than 5 million curated icons in this pack that have been created by a global and culturally diverse community. All these icons are royalty-free, and you can get them easily in your workflow.
Source: lineicons.com
7 Best Free Icon Libraries
The Noun Project's web icons library offers integrations with Adobe, Mac, Office, and Google apps. This might make you assume spending for a yearly plan. Remember, you can download and use it for free and without attribution.
Source: www.atatus.com
10 Best Fontello Alternatives 2021
Designers and photographers from all walks of life can submit their original designs and images on The Noun Project, under the Creative Commons Zero license. This way, anyone can freely use these designs or photos without restrictions or the need for attributions.

Social recommendations and mentions

The Noun Project might be a bit more popular than Font Awesome. We know about 143 links to it since March 2021 and only 130 links to Font Awesome. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Font Awesome mentions (130)

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The Noun Project mentions (143)

  • IcôNES
    If you’re looking for icons http://thenounproject.com (no affiliation) has a huge collection. - Source: Hacker News / 25 days ago
  • The Best 100 Free UI/UX Resources for Every Designer & Developer
    The Noun Project Thenounproject.com Free icons with attribution (CC license). - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How to make mix-blend-mode round to black or white only
    Relying on backdrop-filter has one issue: even if you have a transparent background behind your blending element, the rectangle behind it will look black or white too. This is fine for rectangular elements such as the simple scroller inside the CodePen example, but not for complex shapes such as the planet logo from the Noun Project shown in the same example. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Show HN: LogoMVP – Generate quick, professional logos for your MVP
    Hey, great work! You could easily add the Bootstrap Icons library to this. And then perhaps the Noun Project. https://icons.getbootstrap.com/ https://thenounproject.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Useful Websites for Cheat Sheets and Programming Resources
    Content: The Noun Project offers a vast collection of icons that can be used in various projects, providing a wide range of icons for different purposes. Benefits: Access to high-quality icons for use in design and development projects, enhancing visual communication and design. Link: https://thenounproject.com/. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Font Awesome and The Noun Project, you can also consider the following products

Flaticon - A database of free vector icons.

Icons8 - Free app for Mac & Windows already containing 39,800 icons. Allows to search and import icons…

Google Fonts - Making the web more beautiful, fast, and open through great typography

Iconfinder - Iconfinder is the leading search engine and market place for vector icons in SVG, PNG, CSH and AI format..

IcoMoon - IcoMoon is an icon management tool that is build to provide iconography.

Feather Icons - Simply beautiful open source icons