Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Material Icons VS Feather Icons

Compare Material Icons VS Feather Icons and see what are their differences

Material Icons logo Material Icons

Google Fonts now supports icons

Feather Icons logo Feather Icons

Simply beautiful open source icons
  • Material Icons Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-05-22
  • Feather Icons Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-24

Material Icons features and specs

  • Extensive Collection
    Material Icons offer a comprehensive set of over 2,000 icons, covering a wide range of use cases and design needs.
  • Consistency
    The icons are designed following Google's Material Design guidelines, ensuring visual and functional consistency across different platforms and applications.
  • Scalability
    Being vector-based, these icons can be scaled to any size without losing quality, making them versatile for various screen resolutions.
  • Ease of Integration
    Material Icons are easy to integrate into projects through the use of the Google Fonts API, CSS, or direct downloading and inclusion in codebases.
  • Customizability
    Icons can be customized in terms of color, size, and other styles to fit the specific needs of a project.
  • Free and Open Source
    Material Icons are free to use under the Apache License 2.0, making them accessible for both personal and commercial projects.

Possible disadvantages of Material Icons

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For designers not familiar with Material Design, there may be a learning curve to understanding and effectively implementing the design principles.
  • Design Limitations
    While Material Icons are highly versatile, their design is rooted in Material Design principles, which may not fit every brand or aesthetic.
  • Performance Overhead
    Including a large number of icons through the Google Fonts API can result in additional HTTP requests, potentially affecting page load times.
  • Less Unique
    Given their popularity, Material Icons are widely used, which may lead to a lack of uniqueness in the design of applications using them.
  • Inconsistent Updates
    While Google does update the icon set, updates can be infrequent or may not include all needed icons for newer features or design trends.

Feather Icons features and specs

  • Simple and Clean Design
    Feather Icons offer a minimalist, modern design that is easy to integrate into various types of web and mobile applications.
  • Scalable Vector Graphics
    Being an SVG icon set, Feather Icons are resolution-independent and scalable, ensuring clear visuals on any screen size and resolution.
  • Customization
    The icons are easily customizable in terms of size, color, and stroke width, allowing for seamless integration with the design system.
  • Library Size
    Feather Icons provide a comprehensive set of over 280 icons, covering most common use cases.
  • Lightweight
    The icons are lightweight, which helps reduce load times and improve the performance of web applications.
  • Open Source
    Feather Icons are open-source and available for free, promoting community contributions and enhancements.

Possible disadvantages of Feather Icons

  • Limited Icon Styles
    Feather Icons predominantly offer a single, line-based style, which might not suit all design requirements.
  • Missing Niche Icons
    While the library is comprehensive, some niche or highly specific icons may be missing, necessitating the use of supplementary icon sets.
  • Dependency on External Libraries
    Customizing Feather Icons sometimes requires additional libraries or tools like SVG manipulation libraries, which could add to the project's dependencies.
  • No Animation
    Feather Icons do not come with built-in animation support, so users must manually implement any desired animations, which could require extra effort.

Material Icons videos

NOU - Icon Pack Review Material Icons Best Icon Pack

Feather Icons videos

Feather Nintendo Switch Review-FLY LIKE A BIRD!

More videos:

  • Review - Review: Feather (Switch) - Defunct Games
  • Review - Feather Game Review | Bird Sim | Relaxing | Open World Playground

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Material Icons and Feather Icons)
Web Icons
16 16%
84% 84
Design Tools
18 18%
82% 82
Photos & Graphics
100 100%
0% 0
Vector Icons
8 8%
92% 92

User comments

Share your experience with using Material Icons and Feather Icons. 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 Material Icons and Feather Icons

Material Icons Reviews

10 Best Fontello Alternatives 2021
Fontello doesn’t have this capability so this makes Material Icons the more superior tool. Also, the Material Icons font catalog supports over 135 languages—a feature most of its rivals including Fontello cannot do.
Top FontAwesome alternatives to use on your websites
If you are familiar with Google Fonts already, then you will be familiar with Google's Material Icons. You can include Material Icons in the exact same way that you would include a Google Font family on your webpage.

Feather Icons Reviews

12 Best Free FontAwesome Alternatives in 2023 
Feather Icons is a pack of awesome font icons that are simply beautiful. These open-source icons can be customized according to size, colour, and stroke width with ease. Moreover, you can find approximately 300 free open-source font icons in no time at all. It is quite straightforward to get started with these font icons, and developers, as well as designers, can use them...
Source: lineicons.com
7 Best Free Icon Libraries
It will be possible to represent each embed icon as an SVG, which means there will be no scaling or blurring issues. The Feather Icons library is not the lightest library, but it is still quick on a 2G network and is an excellent starting point since it has open source icons.
Source: www.atatus.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Feather Icons might be a bit more popular than Material Icons. We know about 67 links to it since March 2021 and only 67 links to Material Icons. 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.

Material Icons mentions (67)

  • Best Icon Font Libraries for Developers
    By adding Material Design Icons to your project, you can have a clean and professional look that is in line with current design standards. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Best Flutter Icon Libraries in 2025
    It is a collection of icons provided by Google Fonts, available on their website. This set is the go-to for developers who want to maintain consistency with Google’s Material Design principles. With a wide range of icons, this library is perfect for creating a polished, cohesive app interface. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • The Best 100 Free UI/UX Resources for Every Designer & Developer
    Material Icons Fonts.google.com/icons Google’s open-source icon set for Material Design. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • ✨10 Stunning Icon Libraries to Check Out (That Are Free and Open-Source) 🚀
    Website: Material Symbols GitHub Repo: GitHub Repo. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Ask HN: Which SVG icon library are you using and why?
    Https://fonts.google.com/icons My preference for new projects is currently swaying towards Google's Material library as its just so easy and fast to use. Nevertheless Fontawesome has been a staple for me for the last several years! - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
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Feather Icons mentions (67)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Material Icons and Feather Icons, you can also consider the following products

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!

IconStore - Free icon packs by first-class designers

Heroicons - Beautiful, free SVG icons from the makers of Tailwind CSS.

Streamline icons - The world’s largest icon pack library - 100k icons and illustrations.

Bootstrap Icons - Official open source SVG icon library for Bootstrap

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