JetBrains Mono vs Roboto Mono
Two monospace faces, set live below in their own letters — then the honest take on which to pick and when.
The quick brown fox 0123456789
Philipp Nurullin, Konstantin Bulenkov (JetBrains) · 2020 · weights 400, 500, 600, 700, 800
The quick brown fox 0123456789
Christian Robertson · 2015 · weights 400, 500, 700
At a glance
- Built for
- Coding, editor sessions
- General monospace / Material
- Ligatures
- Yes, programming ligatures
- None
- Heaviest weight
- 800 (ExtraBold)
- 700 (Bold)
- Designer
- JetBrains, 2020
- Christian Robertson, 2015
JetBrains MonoRoboto Mono
The honest take
Two of the most popular free coding monospaces, tuned for different reading comfort. JetBrains Mono (JetBrains, 2020) was designed specifically for code: it has a taller x-height, increased letter height for lowercase, and ships with programming ligatures for combinations like != and =>, which many developers love in their editor. Roboto Mono (Christian Robertson, 2015) is the monospaced member of the Roboto family — a clean, neutral, mechanical grotesque with no ligatures, familiar to anyone who lives in Android and Material tooling. Choose JetBrains Mono for editor and terminal use where the extra x-height and optional ligatures aid long coding sessions. Choose Roboto Mono for code blocks on a Roboto-based site, or when you want a plainer, ligature-free monospace that matches Material design. JetBrains Mono also stretches to an 800 weight; Roboto Mono tops out at 700.
The x-ray
Same size, same baseline — JetBrains Mono over Roboto Mono. Where they agree the strokes merge; where they argue, fringes.
“Hamburgefonstiv” is the type designer's test word — it carries most of the shapes that give a face away.
Read more
More about each face: JetBrains Mono · Roboto Mono