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These are the 40 best free web fonts available on Google Fonts, in my humble opinion. They are all open-source and 100% free for commercial use. This collection focuses on typeface families from reputable type designers and foundries that contain multiple weights and styles. I’m purposefully avoiding single-weight display faces as they have limited usefulness in real-world design projects.
Wondering how to combine these fonts? Check out The Definitive Guide to Free Fonts for some recommended pairings.
Click on the image or font name to see examples of websites using the fonts in the wild. Click on the “Google Fonts” link to use the fonts on your website. The provided ZIP file downloads contain the latest versions of the font files to install on your desktop. The files come from the Google Fonts repository on GitHub—I regularly check the commits on GitHub to make sure the files provided here contain the latest versions.
* Note: An asterisk indicates the family is body text friendly, meaning it contains regular, italic and bold styles and has low-to-moderate stroke contrast, large counters, open apertures and a large x-height.
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Curated by Jeremiah Shoaf · @typewolf
Clicking any of the font names above (or image samples) will take you to a page that shows examples of that font in use in the wild. This is a great way to gather inspiration and see the combinations that other designers have used. I also wrote an article sharing some of my favorite combinations with a focus on lesser-used typefaces. I have additional pairing recommendations in The Definitive Guide to Free Fonts, which also includes the closest free alternative on Google Fonts to every commercial font featured on Typewolf.
Yes. All fonts available on Google Fonts are released as open-source under either the SIL Open Font License version 1.1 or Apache License version 2.0. That said, you should always double-check and read the individual license before using any font in a project.
Yes. All fonts available on Google Fonts are released as open-source under either the SIL Open Font License version 1.1 or Apache License version 2.0. Both licenses allow for redistribution with the requirement that a copy of the original license and copyright notice is included. That said, you should always double-check and read the individual license before redistributing any font.
Yes. You can download the ZIP files from this page (using the links located under the bottom right corner of the sample images) and then install the font files locally on your system like you would any other font. Some fonts are optimized for use on screens, so it’s always a good idea to print some test copies to see how they read on a printed page.
Yes. You can download the ZIP files from this page (using the links located under the bottom right corner of the sample images) and then install the font files locally on your system like you would any other font.
I recommend using the Google Fonts API (the HTML/CSS embed code snippets provided by Google). This allows you to take advantage of cross-site caching, which means a user will already have the fonts cached locally in their browser if they have visited another website that uses the same fonts (and due to the popularity of Google Fonts, this is oftentimes likely). If you use self-hosting, every user will have to download the fonts directly from your server which is usually much slower.
A few of my favorite script fonts are Tangerine, Dancing Script, Bad Script and Sacramento.
Archivo Narrow (included in the list above) is really great. Roboto and Open Sans come in condensed widths as well. A few other nice choices are Barlow Condensed, Pathway Gothic One, Fjalla One and Oswald.
Abril Fatface is super nice (it didn’t make the top 40 list as it only includes a single style). Also check out Rozha One and Ultra.
Check out UnifrakturMaguntia, UnifrakturCook, Pirata One, New Rocker, Germania One and Fruktur for some nice typefaces in the blackletter (sometimes referred to as Fraktur or Old English) style.
It was hard to narrow this list down to 40 options, so here are some other contenders that didn’t quite make the cut: Zilla Slab, Overpass, Josefin Sans, Josefin Slab, Old Standard TT, Gentium Basic, Varela Round, Rajdhani, Bitter and Nunito Sans.
Also, here are some newer releases that are really great that I haven’t had a chance to feature in-use examples on Typewolf yet: Instrument Sans, Instrument Serif, Bricolage Grotesque, Roboto Serif, Newsreader, Plus Jakarta Sans, Familjen Grotesk, Azeret Mono, Spartan, DM Serif Text, DM Serif Display, Literata and Outfit.
By Jeremiah Shoaf · @typewolf
