Font Awesome vs Unicons: What are the differences?

Introduction

Font Awesome and Unicons are both popular icon libraries that provide a wide range of icons for use in websites. While they serve a similar purpose, there are key differences between them.

1. Icon Collection: Font Awesome offers a larger collection of icons compared to Unicons. Font Awesome includes over 7,000 icons, covering a wide range of categories such as technology, business, and social media. On the other hand, Unicons provides around 1000 icons, focusing on essential and commonly used icons.

2. Design Style: Font Awesome icons have a more detailed and skeuomorphic design style. These icons often resemble real-world objects, making them suitable for a variety of design styles. In contrast, Unicons follow a more simplistic and minimalist design approach. They have fewer details and a flatter appearance, which can be well-suited for modern and minimalist design trends.

3. Licensing: Font Awesome offers both free and premium versions of their icon library. The free version, known as Font Awesome Free, can be used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. The premium version, Font Awesome Pro, requires a paid subscription and provides additional features and icons. Unicons, on the other hand, is completely free to use, even for commercial projects, without any licensing restrictions.

4. Customization Options: Font Awesome provides more extensive customization options for their icons. Users can easily change the size, color, and style of Font Awesome icons using CSS classes and other tools. On the other hand, Unicons have limited customization options, with fewer built-in features for adjusting icon appearance. However, customizations can still be achieved by manually editing the SVG code.

5. Integration: Font Awesome is well-integrated with popular web frameworks such as Bootstrap and Foundation. It provides pre-built CSS classes and JavaScript components for easy inclusion of icons in these frameworks. Unicons, on the other hand, does not have official integration with specific frameworks. However, both libraries can be used with any website or framework by including the necessary CSS and JavaScript files.

6. Community Support: Font Awesome has a larger and more established community compared to Unicons. This means there are more online resources, tutorials, and support available for Font Awesome. The large community also contributes to regular updates, bug fixes, and the creation of new icons. Unicons, being a relatively newer library, has a smaller community, which may result in fewer resources and updates.

In Summary, Font Awesome offers a larger, more customizable collection of icons with a skeuomorphic design style, while Unicons provides a simpler, minimalist icon collection with limited customization options and a flatter appearance. Font Awesome has both free and premium versions, while Unicons is completely free. Font Awesome is well-integrated with popular web frameworks, and it has a larger community and more resources compared to Unicons.