13 sites to download free fonts online

Finding a free font in 2026 is not difficult. Finding one that is actually usable for a professional project, properly licensed for commercial use, complete in terms of weights and special characters, and that does not look like everything else: that is another story. Hundreds of sites offer "free" fonts, but many mix genuinely free fonts with limited demos, unclear licences or incomplete files missing accents, ligatures or italic variants.

This selection brings together 13 reliable, tested sites, with a clear explanation for each of what you will find, the type of licence offered, and the intended audience. Some are massive libraries with thousands of fonts. Others are independent foundries offering only a handful of type families, but of a quality that paid fonts do not always match.

Licences: what to check before downloading

Before diving into the list, an essential point about licences. "Free" does not always mean "usable for everything". There are several levels of free in the typographic world.

The SIL Open Font License (OFL) is the most permissive and most common licence for open-source fonts. It allows use, modification and redistribution for any purpose, including commercial, without restriction. It is the licence used by Google Fonts and the majority of open-source foundries. The Apache 2.0 licence offers similar rights. Fonts under Creative Commons licences (CC0 or CC BY) are also free for commercial use, sometimes with an attribution requirement.

On the other end, "Free for personal use" means the font is free for your personal projects (an invitation, an Instagram post, an internal document), but you need to buy a licence for any commercial use (logo, business website, packaging, advertising). Many sites mix both categories, which can cause problems if you do not check the licence before using a font in a client project.

For each site below, we specify which type of licence predominates.

1. Google Fonts

Google Fonts is the absolute reference for free fonts usable with complete legal safety. Over 1,700 type families, all under open-source licences (SIL OFL or Apache 2.0), all usable for commercial purposes without restriction or attribution. It is the safest starting point for any web project.

The interface lets you preview each font with your own text, filter by category (serif, sans-serif, display, handwriting, monospace), by language, by number of available styles and by visual properties. The Noto section covers virtually every writing system in the world, from Latin to Japanese, Arabic, Hindi and Korean. The Knowledge section offers articles on typography, readability and accessibility, making it an educational resource as well.

Web integration is Google Fonts' greatest strength: you can load fonts directly from Google's CDN with a simple link tag, or download them for local hosting. Virtually all WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace and Shopify themes integrate Google Fonts natively.

2. Font Squirrel

Font Squirrel calls itself a "free font utopia", and it is not just a slogan. The site only lists fonts whose licence explicitly allows commercial use. Each font is manually verified before being added to the library. If a font is on Font Squirrel, you can use it for a logo, a website or a commercial document without legal risk.

The catalogue is smaller than DaFont or Google Fonts (a few thousand fonts), but the average quality is noticeably higher. Font Squirrel also offers a webfont generator that converts any font into WOFF, WOFF2, EOT and SVG formats optimised for the web, and a font identifier tool that analyses an image to find which font is used in it.

3. DaFont

DaFont is probably the best-known free font site in the world, with a catalogue of over 80,000 fonts sorted by theme (fantasy, gothic, techno, script, pixel, retro, holidays, etc.). It is the ideal place to find a very specific font for a creative project: a typeface evoking the 1980s, a neon style, childlike handwriting, a retro video game font.

The point to watch with DaFont: licences vary widely from one font to another. Some are entirely free (public domain, OFL), others are "free for personal use" only, and a few are demos of paid fonts. The licence is shown on each font's page, but it is up to you to check it before any commercial use. DaFont does not verify licences the way Font Squirrel does.

4. Fontshare

Fontshare is a project by the Indian Type Foundry (ITF) offering professional-quality fonts, entirely free for personal and commercial use. The catalogue is deliberately limited (around a hundred families) but each font is designed with the same care as a paid font. Families are complete: multiple weights, italics, extended character sets.

What sets Fontshare apart from most free sites is the level of polish. Fonts like Satoshi, General Sans or Switzer rival paid fonts costing 50 or 100 euros per licence. The site's interface is itself a model of design, with large-format previews and suggested pairings (font combinations that work well together). If you are looking for a modern, clean, professional font without paying, Fontshare should be your first stop after Google Fonts.

5. FontSpace

FontSpace offers over 100,000 fonts in TrueType and OpenType formats, provided by more than 3,000 designers. The site sorts fonts by classic categories (serif, sans-serif, script) but also by occasions (wedding, Halloween, Christmas, back to school), which is handy if you are looking for a font for a specific use without knowing exactly what style you want.

Each font is clearly labelled with its licence type: a "100% Free" filter lets you show only fonts that are free for all uses, including commercial. It is a good middle ground between DaFont's variety and Font Squirrel's rigour.

6. 1001 Fonts

1001 Fonts offers a catalogue of free fonts with a particularly clear licence filtering system. Each font displays a badge indicating whether it is "Free for commercial use" or "Free for personal use", with no ambiguity. The site also offers thematic collections (fonts for logos, elegant fonts, retro fonts) and a preview tool that lets you type your text and compare multiple fonts side by side.

Quality varies as on any community site, but the licence filtering and user ratings help separate good fonts from mediocre ones.

7. Velvetyne Type Foundry

Velvetyne is a collective of type designers based in Paris that distributes free and open-source fonts. All Velvetyne fonts are free, modifiable and redistributable for any use, including commercial. The catalogue is not huge (a few dozen families), but each font has character. These are creative, sometimes experimental fonts that look nothing like what you find on mainstream sites.

Velvetyne is aimed at designers and creatives looking for distinctive typography for a visual identity project, a poster, a magazine or a website that wants to stand out. It is not the place to find a neutral corporate font, but it is the place to find a font nobody else is using.

8. The League of Moveable Type

The League of Moveable Type is one of the first open-source type foundries on the web. Their stated mission is to "raise the design standards of the web" by distributing high-quality fonts for free. The catalogue is deliberately limited to a handful of families, but each one is a classic: Raleway, Junction, Ostrich Sans, League Gothic, League Spartan.

All fonts are under the OFL licence, usable for any commercial purpose. League Gothic, in particular, has become one of the most widely used condensed fonts on the web and in editorial design.

9. Collletttivo

Collletttivo is a design collective that creates and distributes open-source fonts. Like Velvetyne, the catalogue is small but carefully curated: each font is a full typographic project, not a clone of Helvetica or Futura. Fonts are distributed under the OFL licence, free for any use.

Collletttivo's approach is that of a network of designers who challenge each other to produce professional-quality fonts outside the commercial circuit. The result is a selection of original, well-designed fonts with complete character sets including European diacritics.

10. Open Foundry

Open Foundry is a curated collection of open-source fonts with a particularly well-designed preview interface. You can adjust kerning, size, background and text colours directly on each font's page, letting you test a font in a context close to your actual project before downloading it.

All fonts listed on Open Foundry are free for personal and commercial use. The site does not produce its own fonts: it selects and showcases the best open-source fonts available elsewhere, offering a more pleasant discovery experience than GitHub or foundry repositories.

11. Fontesk

Fontesk publishes new free fonts daily, a mix of entirely free fonts and "Personal Use" versions of fonts whose commercial licence is paid. The site is well organised with clear categories and style tags. The licence is prominently displayed on each download page.

What makes Fontesk interesting is the freshness of the catalogue. Where Google Fonts and Font Squirrel evolve slowly, Fontesk adds new fonts every day, making it a good place to discover recent typefaces that have not yet been seen everywhere.

12. Uncut.wtf

Uncut.wtf is a curated selection of contemporary libre fonts with a strong editorial stance. The site only lists fonts that are free for commercial use, with a deliberately limited but high-quality catalogue. The aesthetic is resolutely modern: you will find bold display fonts, minimalist sans-serifs and experimental typefaces.

The site's interface is minimalist and lets you preview each font in large format. It is an excellent source for designers who want to break away from the beaten path without spending hours searching on generalist sites.

13. Font Library

Font Library is a project dedicated to free and open-source fonts, with an emphasis on webfonts. All fonts on the site are distributed under free licences (OFL, GPL, CC) and can be used, modified and redistributed. The site provides ready-to-use CSS integration code for each font, simplifying use on a website.

The catalogue is modest compared to Google Fonts, but Font Library has a clear philosophy: only listing genuinely free fonts, with no licence grey areas. It is a good starting point for web developers looking for a self-hosted alternative to Google Fonts.

How to choose the right font

With 13 sites and hundreds of thousands of fonts available, the risk is spending more time looking for the perfect font than making progress on your project. A few principles for filtering effectively.

If you need a font for a website or an app, start with Google Fonts or Fontshare. The fonts are optimised for screen display, the licences are crystal clear, and technical integration is straightforward. If you are looking for a font for a visual identity project and want something nobody else is using, look at Velvetyne, Collletttivo or Uncut.wtf. If you need a very specific themed font (retro style, pixel art, calligraphy), DaFont and FontSpace have the widest catalogues. And if the commercial licence is a critical concern (client project, packaging, advertising), stick to sites that only list 100% free fonts: Google Fonts, Font Squirrel, Fontshare, Velvetyne, The League of Moveable Type.

Professional-quality free fonts have never been more accessible. Google Fonts and Fontshare cover 90% of web and commercial needs with transparent licences. Font Squirrel manually verifies every licence for those who want zero legal risk. DaFont and FontSpace offer variety for creative projects, provided you check each font's licence individually. And independent foundries like Velvetyne, Collletttivo and The League of Moveable Type prove that high-quality typography can be made without selling it. The only reflex to keep: always check the licence before using a font in a commercial project.