Open Sans vs Roboto
Two sans-serif faces, set live below in their own letters — then the honest take on which to pick and when.
At a glance
- Type tradition
- Humanist sans
- Grotesque, mechanical skeleton
- Best for
- Long-form body text
- Product UI
- Rhythm
- Warmer, flowing
- Tighter, systematic
- Designer
- Steve Matteson, 2011
- Christian Robertson, 2011
Open SansRoboto
The honest take
Two of the most-served body sans-serifs of the 2010s, both neutral, both safe, but from different type traditions. Open Sans (Steve Matteson, 2011) is a humanist sans — open forms, generous spacing, a slightly warmer rhythm that flows well in long paragraphs. Roboto (Christian Robertson, 2011) has a more mechanical, grotesque skeleton softened by friendly curves, and it is tuned for Android's UI grid. For running text on a content site, Open Sans usually feels a touch more comfortable and less rigid. For a product interface, especially anything Android-adjacent, Roboto's tighter, more systematic rhythm fits the UI better. Both offer 300–700 (Roboto skips 600), and either will disappear into the background exactly as a good body face should.
The x-ray
Same size, same baseline — Open Sans over Roboto. 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.