Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Fonts?

7 points·_bxg1··6 comments

I'd like to use a nice web font on my personal website, but I don't want to involve Google. I could of course download and serve the fonts myself, which I may end up doing, but a CDN would still be nice. Are there any good alternatives to Google Fonts?

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Just put the font files on the same server as your images and other page assets. Given how small font files are, there's little benefit to serving them from a CDN if the rest of your site isn't.

When you are hosting on your own server, trim the font file to only serve the characters of the language you will using, which often translates to ascii characters. That greatly reduced font file size. If any character on your page falls outside that range, the default font of browser will kick in.

That seems a bit much. Not great when you have to go through the process everytime you update your site. Or more likely, you will forget you implemented this & also how you did it in the first place..

It's unlikely you start writing Hebrew or Greek someday.

And even so, that minification can be automated.

What is your reasoning behind not involving Google?

Asking because: As soon as you use a different CDN it might use some Google stuff under the hood.

Check out Font Squirrel and DaFont. They are my go to font sites I use outside of Google Fonts.

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