# Comparison of font editors

This is a technical feature comparison of font editors.

## General

Basic general information about font editors: creator, first release date, latest stable version, latest release date and license.
| Software | Creator | First release date | Latest stable version | Latest release date | License |
| BirdFont | Johan Mattsson | August 24, 2012 | | | Proprietary or open source |
| DTL FontMaster | Dutch Type Library | | 3.0 | | Proprietary |
| DTL FontMaster Light | Dutch Type Library | | 2.7 | | Free |
| DTL OTMaster | | | 6.3 | | Proprietary |
| DTL OTMaster Light | | | 3.7 | | Free |
| FontArk (Web service) | | | | | Proprietary |
| FontCreator | Erwin Denissen | January 25, 1999 | 15.0.0.306 | October 14, 2024 | Proprietary |
| FontDraw | Alexander Kirichenko | April 25, 2022 | 1.0 | April 25, 2022 | Proprietary |
| FontForge | George Williams | | 20230101 | January 1, 2023 | GPL3 |
| FontLab | Yuri Yarmola | 1993 | 8.4.2.8950 | September 25, 2024 | Proprietary |
| Fontographer | Jim von Ehr | | 5.2 | | Proprietary |
| Glyphr Studio | Matt LaGrandeur, Mateusz Zawartka, Troy Coutu, & Eric Newport | | 0.5.3 | October 2019 | GPL3 |
| Glyphs | Georg Seifert | 2011 | 3.2 | June 16, 2023 | Proprietary, file format and parts of the code open source |
| Ikarus | | | | | Proprietary |
| RoboFont | | | | | Proprietary |
| Type | | | 3.2 | | Proprietary |
| Type light | | | 3.2.038 | | Proprietary |
| TypeTool | | | 3.1 | | Proprietary |
| VOGG | | | | | Free |

## Operating system support

The table below lists the operating systems on which each font editor can run.
| Software | Windows | OS X | Linux | iOS |
| Birdfont | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Crossfont | | Yes | | |
| DTL FontMaster | Yes | | | |
| DTL FontMaster Light | Yes | | | |
| DTL OTMaster | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| DTL OTMaster Light | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| FontCreator | Yes | Yes | | |
| FontDraw | Yes | | | |
| FontForge | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| FontLab | Yes | Yes | | |
| Glyphs | No | Yes | | |
| Robofont | No | Yes | | |
| Type | Yes | Yes | | |
| Type light | Yes | Yes | | |
| TypeTool | Yes | Yes | | |
| VOGG | | | | Yes |

## General features

Below is an overview of general features typical for font editors.
| Software | Maximum number of glyphs supported | Colored glyphs | Windows Type 1 (.pfb) editor | Mac Type 1 (LWFN) editor | OpenType TT / TrueType (.ttf) editor | Mac TrueType (sfnt/dfont) editor | TrueType Collection (.ttc) editor | OpenType PS (.otf) editor | Macro / Script |
| FontCreator | unlimited in source file | COLR, CPAL, SVG | | | import and export | | import | import and export | OpenType PS (.otf) editor Macro / Script Transformations |
| FontForge | | No | import and export | import and export | import and export | import and export | import and export | import and export | Yes |
| FontLab | unlimited in source file | COLR, CPAL, SBIX, SVG | import & export | | import & export | import | import | import & export | Python scripting |
| Glyphs | unlimited in source file | COLR, CPAL, SBIX, SVG | import | import | import & export | import | import | import & export | Python script and plug-ins, Objective-C plug-ins, free SDK available |
The OpenType cmap table can reference a maximum of 65536 glyphs.

## TrueType hinting

Font editors supporting TrueType hinting can do that either automatically or manually. The availability of these functions and the possibility to debug hinting is indicated in the following table.
| Software | Automatic TrueType hinting | Manual TrueType hinting | TrueType hinting debugger |
| FontCreator 12 | ttfAutohint | | |
| FontDraw 1.0 | ttfAutohint | | |
| FontLab | ttfAutohint & FontLab | GUI | code preview and rendering previews, including Windows ClearType on macOS |
| Glyphs | ttfAutohint | GUI | live preview of 3 renderings |