Not everyone can afford the license for a popular paid font. If you're looking for a font to use in a new branding project, a poster, or website, you might be on the lookout for a font that you can use commercially, and preferably for free.
Thankfully, the internet is filled with free font websites. We're going to list the best websites where you can download fonts for free, perfect for your next project.
1. Google Fonts
Google Fonts has one of the largest collections of web-ready fonts. It offers more than 1,300 different font families.
You can narrow down your searches by category, language, popularity, and even attributes like thickness or width. Click on the font preview to change the preview text (you can apply it to all fonts on the page as well).
One of the best things about Google Fonts is its versatile font preview tool. You can choose to preview a paragraph or a sentence with any given font. You can increase the font size or switch to a different version of the font as well.
Finally, you can see how a font pairs with others, which can help you get the perfect font combination for your project.
When you've found the font you need, you can either download it to your computer or grab the code to embed it on your website.
2. Fonts.com + SkyFonts
Fonts.com sells a huge variety of fonts. But what you should know about this site is its integration with Google Fonts and SkyFonts. SkyFonts is a desktop application for downloading and managing fonts. If you want a one-click option for downloading and installing Google Fonts, this is the app you should be using.
Once SkyFonts is installed:
- On Fonts.com, click Browse Google Fonts and search for a Google font.
- Once you've selected a font family or multiple font families, click on the SkyFonts dropdown and check the Add Entire Family option.
- Click Add.
The SkyFonts app on your computer will spring into action, downloading and installing the entire font family.
3. FontBundles Free Fonts Collection
FontBundles helps designers save a couple of bucks by curating font bundles. The website also features a Free Fonts section which lists hundreds of free fonts that you can download and use for free once you sign up for an account.
Unlike some other websites on this list, the collection on FontBundles keeps changing dynamically. Every week, one premium font gets featured on the Free Font of the Week page. If you're a budding typographer, you should bookmark this page and return to it every week.
As FontBundles is giving you a premium font for free, they also come with a license that allows you to use them commercially for free.
4. Behance
Behance is the place where some of the world's best designers showcase their creative work. Some designers even use it as a portfolio website, while others use it to display and share their work, be it design assets or fonts.
If you like to experiment with fonts, just search for "free fonts" on Behance. You won't always find a complete font set with multiple versions, but you'll definitely find something that will pique your interest.
Behance is a good place to explore if you're looking for fonts to use in a graphic design project. Anything to do with logos, social media banners, and posters will get you good results. But if you're looking for a new typeface for a branding project, something that will be displayed on a website or a blog, this is probably not the right place.
5. Dribbble
Dribbble is a similar platform to Behance, though not as popular. Dribbble is popular among UI designers, however, so you'll find a sizable selection of fonts on the website. Just search for "free fonts" to get started. Although the collection is not as sizable as Behance, you'll find plenty of modern, script, and serif fonts here.
6. Dafont
Dafont is one of the oldest and the best sources for downloading fonts. Dafont features more than 60,000 fonts on its website.
Filtering through such a huge collection can be challenging. Therefore, Dafont has a category system at the top. This is the best place to start. Explore a sub-category like Cartoon, or Handwritten. You can also sort through the list using themes like Halloween, Rustic, Horror, and so on.
Click on the Recently Added Fonts or the Top Fonts button to see the preview tool. Type what you want in the preview box and it will show up in the results below. Use the advanced search tool to narrow down your results further. If you know what you're looking for, jump to the search bar at the top of the page.
When you like a font, click on the Download button to save it offline (there's no need to create an account).
7. Urbanfonts
Think of Urbanfonts as the modern, polished version of Dafont—this makes it one of the best free font sites. The website is easier to use and more pleasing to the eye, but the fundamental structure is the same. You'll find a list of fonts that you can sort through based on a category, release date, or popularity.
Urbanfont's preview feature is also better. You can preview fonts using custom text on a black background. When you hover over the preview, you'll see the entire alphabet in the preview box.
8. Fontspace
Fontspace is a font directory with more than 75,000 fonts listed. It takes a visual approach to display fonts. Along with the usual editable font preview, you'll also find an image from the designer that showcases the font. If you're looking for fonts for a graphic design project, seeing them used in an image is certainly helpful.
By default, Fontspace shows all fonts. If you want to only see fonts that are available for free commercial use, you'll have to click the Gear icon and select the Only show commercial-use fonts option.
9. Font Squirrel
Font Squirrel is a bit different from the other websites on this list because it compiles fonts from other websites and links out to them. All the fonts are free for commercial use and come in either OTF or TTF format.
You can filter your fonts by type, category, tags, and more. Unfortunately, you can't get a custom preview of the font—for that, you'll need to click through and hope the source website offers the functionality.
Related: OTF vs. TTF Fonts: Which Is Better? What's the Difference?
Add the New Fonts to Your Programs
The free font websites above make it easy to pick an aesthetically pleasing font. You can download thousands of great fonts to spice up any project. Then, if you're a designer, you'll likely want to add the font to programs like Photoshop.
You can also use the font in your favorite word processor to help give your documents that extra bit of flair.
