Typography Tools (Designer-side)

The designer-facing typography toolchain — font management, browsing, and design. The code-side picks (next/font, Fontsource, Capsize, Utopia.fyi) live in Fonts & Typography.

Font managers (browse / activate fonts on disk)

• ★ FontBase — closed source, free; the dominant cross-platform free font manager in 2026. Win/macOS/Linux. Live preview, Google Fonts integration, projects.
• RightFont (macOS) — closed source, paid; designer favorite.
• Font Manager (Linux) — free OSS; GTK app.
• macOS Font Book — built-in; usable but limited.
• Suitcase Fusion — closed source, paid; legacy pro pick (Extensis).
• Typeface (macOS) — closed source, paid; minimalist.

Font discovery / pairing

• ★ Fontshare (Indian Type Foundry) — free quality fonts for personal and commercial use. Genuinely good free pick that's not just Google Fonts.
• ★ Google Fonts — free / OSS; the default browser. New OFL-licensed faces continue to land.
• Adobe Fonts — closed source, paid (CC subscription).
• Fontsource — see Fonts & Typography; OSS browser + npm packages.
• Pangram Pangram — free for personal use foundry; pay for commercial.
• Type Scale (typescale.com) — free type-scale visualizer.
• Fontjoy — free pairing tool; AI-suggested combinations.
• Type Connection — free interactive pairing tutorial.
• Font Pair — free curated Google Fonts pairings.

Font rental / licensing services

• Fontstand — closed source; rent type by the month (paid). Useful for short projects.
• Adobe Fonts — see above.
• Monotype Fonts — closed source, paid.

Font designers (make your own)

• ★ Glyphs Mini (macOS) — closed source, paid (~€45 one-time); the affordable starter for actually designing a typeface.
• Glyphs 3 — paid; the pro tool.
• Birdfont — free OSS (GPL); cross-platform; basic but works.
• FontForge — free OSS; powerful but ancient UI.
• RoboFont (macOS) — closed source, paid; Python-scriptable; the academic pick.
• FontLab — closed source, paid; legacy pro pick.
• Runic — newer browser-based font editor; freemium.

Variable-font design / playground

• Wakamai Fondue — free web tool; inspect any font for OpenType features, axes, and unicode coverage.
• v-fonts.com — free showcase; experiment with variable axes live.
• Axis-Praxis — free playground for variable fonts.

Identify a font in the wild

• ★ WhatFont (browser extension) — free; click any text on a page → name + size + line-height. The classic.
• Fontanello (browser extension) — free; minimal alternative.
• WhatTheFont by MyFonts — free upload-based identifier.
• Font Squirrel Matcherator — free image-based identifier.

OpenType / variable font playgrounds

• See Wakamai Fondue above.
• Underware Type Tools — free OpenType utilities.

Pick this if…

• Free font manager, any OS: FontBase.
• Find quality free fonts beyond Google: Fontshare.
• Design an actual typeface, cheap: Glyphs Mini.
• Design a typeface, fully OSS: Birdfont or FontForge.
• Identify a font on a website: WhatFont extension.
• Pair two fonts visually: Fontjoy or Type Scale.